They did not leave the auditorium until late at night. The classical musicians plied them with questions and with drink, collecting every detail they possibly could about the threat to Christmas, and then discussing every plan they could possibly think of to save it.

Caedes had thought - had hoped - that Yaaroghkh would try to dissuade the classical musicians from trying to fight hundreds if not thousands of demonic cultivators when they knew not the slightest thing about cultivation, but much to his horror he was the most enthusiastic of the lot. Whether it was through plying them with innocuous questions, or by positing that this or that activity would be of great benefit to their goal, he managed to inspire and inform with all the panache of a true motivational speaker.

This worried Caedes more than it upset him. The elf had been cultivating for millennia, if not more, and if there was any truth in their conversations he had routinely faced situations far deadlier and more dangerous than any Caedes had ever seen. Why, then, did he think that people who didn’t even know martial arts, nevermind cultivation, had an ice cube's chance in hell of defeating an army of pure evil?

It was a question he kept within himself, waiting until the two had finally left and were alone to ask.

The street was foggy. It was one of those strange winter nights which were slightly warm, and instead of snow they had sleet and fog. The fog rose four or more feet off the ground, and though the sleet was not heavy it still obscured whatever hadn’t been hidden by the fog. Strange shapes moved amidst the gloom and the mist, and the very buildings seemed to shiver as if alive. Visibility was poor, and the streets of the City of Tombstones were for once empty; but the moon still shone through the storm.

“Yaaroghkh-”

“Yaary,” the elf interrupted, in a fey mood as he contemplated the hidden stars. “We’ve fought and risked death together thrice now, and by the Traditions of the Elves are brothers.”

Caedes felt his heart beat strangely. How long ago had it been since he had heard that word? He was not sure he deserved it, but he’d accept it nonetheless.

“Yaary, something’s bothering me. Why didn’t you try to dissuade those musicians from fighting Das Gleiche? You know as well as I do that they can’t win in the face of absolute power.”

The elf removed a flask of schnapps from an unfathomable pocket, taking a glug with one of his mouths. He then wiped a totally different mouth before responding.

“No, no I don’t know. I have told you before that cultivation is magic, and therefore follows the rules of magic. ‘So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.’ One who can’t win by strength alone may yet win by wisdom; one who can’t win by wisdom can win through inner force; but one who can’t win by inner force may still triumph through the fire of one’s soul.”

The elf noticed Caedes’ sceptical look, and smiled slightly. “You doubt my words. That’s fair: I would have, too, when I was your age. But let me put it this way to you: Fate is a capricious and fantastical fellow, always given to doing what you least expect. Reality appears to be going along in its normal, humdrum fashion; and then some miracle occurs to make you realise it’s been uncanny all along.”

“Is that what you tell yourself when you have trouble sleeping at night?”

I imagine some of my readers may be confused here, for Caedes has shown himself to be many things, but a promoter of a petty and vicious toxicity is not one of them. But as a matter of fact this was not Caedes - it was a young woman, who could be seen dimly in the fog sitting on a wall and sneering.

Stolen novel; please report.

She had long, luxurious black hair, and was otherwise dressed fabulously - which was very odd, for even a warm winter’s night is still a winter’s night, and this would have screamed her identity even had her careening demonic qi not warned Caedes she was a cultivator of the late Fifth Circuit.

Nor would the two or three dozen cultivators who were with me - and even now surrounding our noble protagonists - anything to discount. There was not one below the upper end of the Third Circuit. It was the most formidable force Caedes had seen for some time.

Yaaroghkh’s whirling, spinning eyes took all this in at a moment’s notice, though it troubled him not in the slightest.

“I don’t sleep at night. I dream.”

The woman snorted, hawking a dollop of phlegm onto the ground. “I have no clue why management sent me to deal with the likes of you.”

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t know why either. You should have stayed at home, where it’s comfortable, and cultivated in peace and goodwill.” The elf said, folding his arms into his coat sleeves. “Instead you have come to find me and thence to revile Christmas: and for that, death has come to you.”

“Don’t get too big for your britches, you…whatever you are. Blow me, but you’re rather a gross one, aren’t you? Well, you’ll die all the same.”

The demonic cultivators were ringed around them in some sort of formation. Caedes didn’t recognise it, but based on the way Yaaroghkh’s eyebrows rose and the dry chuckle that rattled out of his throat he knew his elfin colleague did, and was unconcerned. Caedes took this as a positive sign, flexing his fingers rather than drawing his weapons immediately.

Yaaroghkh shook his head sadly. “I do not like the custom of pooptalking: it is an insult to poetry, and to your opponent. Leave, and see sunny days again; or store, and you will become yet more familiar with the darkness under the earth.”

The woman put one hand on her hips, shaking her head in disgust. “As if you could pose a threat to me. I’ll have you know, you mere beast, that I have reached the Eighth Orbit of the Fifth Circuit.”

Yaaroghkh said nothing. This was partly because he’d said his piece, and would say no more. But partly it was because he had no clue what she was talking about. Orbits? Circuits? What were those - some means of quantifying cultivation? Who kept track of stuff like that? It wasn’t like cultivation was a race to the finish: you either made it to immortality, or you didn’t.

The woman took his saying nothing as a sign that he had nothing to say, and continued to gloat. “But you can take some solace in the fact that you’ve at least been annoying enough to merit execution by #0009 of Das Gleiche, Ilsa. Not many are privileged to die at the hands of the executive staff.”

This announcement made no impact on either Caedes or Yaaroghkh. Caedes hopped from foot to foot, excited to get this over with, and get to their next mission; Yaaroghkh, for his part, looked at his friend and warned him not to interrupt Ilsa’s last words.

Of course when one is roaring one’s greatness to the Heavens and receives only silence in return, one is apt to get a little angry. Ilsa’s eyes sparked, and she ground her teeth. “What, are you dumb, or just in despair? Or have you failed to realise that it’s not just your lives at stake here?”

And here she smiled for the first time. It was not a nice smile. A brilliant crescent of white appeared on her shadowed face, but it did not light it up, nor make her look friendlier. If anything she looked like a hyena who had seen its next carrion dinner.

She turned her head, until she was staring straight at Caedes. “You’re the human one, not like that…other thing…which means, if I remember correctly, that you’re the one with the girlfriend.”

Caedes did not stiffen, hooking his fingers through his belt loops. “Sure, what of her?”

Ilsa’s smile had not been nice, but here it turned positively nasty. “Oh, nothing. It’s just…well, you know, Das Gleiche is a big corporation: and it’s possible for us to be in two different places at once.”

She pretended to cock her head sweetly, which sickened Caedes in ways Yaaroghkh’s form had never done.

“You may have accepted your fate, but can you accept hers?”