"I'm open to suggestions."<br/><br/>"Well, we could go to Inada Navda and ask her for a map to places where we might reclaim some first age technology to prepare us to stand against the coming trials."<br/><br/>"So we just give up on the Empress, then?"<br/><br/>"You just said there was no way we could stand against the Ebon Dragon.  How do we change that?"<br/><br/>"I don't know.  Negotiate?"<br/><br/>Jade stamped her foot.  "Don't be stupid, as badly as the Empress has run Creation, that's not half as bad as Creation could be in the debt of the Ebon Dragon."<br/><br/>Darius sighed.  "I hate to think what he means to do with her.  He is keeping her alive for a reason, I am sure."<br/><br/>Suddenly the neomah chimed in.  "Master could negotiate through Gemula, The Jeweled Auditor.  He bargains stringently but fairly, and would make an excellent mediator for such a negotiation of property."  She smiled slightly and fluttered her eyelids in a way that could almost pass for innocent.  Darius looked back at the demon with cold eyes.  "I asked you no question; I cannot be sure that what you say is true.  Therefore I command you from now on to speak no falsehood nor purposely omit the truth from me.  Is that understood?"<br/>"Yes, Master."  The demon still had that slight smile.<br/>"Was what you said of Gemula the truth?"<br/>"Yes Master, it was and is true."<br/>"Why tell me this?"<br/><br/>The demon's smile was still there, but something behind it was gone; it almost seemed sincere.  "I am a soul born of the Weaver of Voices, who is born of the Green Sun.  At times the Ebon Dragon flies in Malfeas, and blocks the light of Ligier.  It is in my nature to despise him, Master.  So I tell you that you might take the Scarlet Empress away from him, Master."<br/><br/>Darius turned back toward Jade before he replied, though he almost seemed to be speaking to himself.  "I cannot summon a Second Circle demon until the new moon, and that is three weeks away.  Until then, we go to Inada Navda, but I must warn you, unless she reveals something as disturbing as all this has been, I will from there go to the First Age waterworks and take up my original plan."  Again, he sighed.  He seemed to sigh a lot.  "It is nearly dawn now, we may as well journey onward.  It will be a month before this manse regrows its hearthstone."<br/><br/>From behind Darius, the demon seemed to squeal with delight in a manner Jade found a lot like Yume.  "Does this mean I will be joining Master's harem?"