"Should we turn off the radio, sir?", Tibex asks.

"It's not illegal yet," he replies, "Keep going if you like. But I'm going to go... consider."

Someone is very clever. He knew this. Now he knows they have an agenda, and he is removed enough from the water Chelish fish swim in that he can see that this is, if not aimed at Cheliax, at least very deliberately not aimed away.

It's going to be banned. They're not that hard to hide and you could probably hide the wires and reassemble them for the broadcasts you want... slaves will do it. If they heard... they probably mostly haven't heard, since you can only listen with the headphones. The Bellflowers and whoever else are going to have fun smuggling things into the country.

But thinking a step beyond that. Everyone in Cheliax is, in a weaker sense that is legally not equivalent, a slave, to Church and Crown. The nobles - well, they could probably get away with being caught with radios just fine, but they're also the least interested, except maybe in listening to chariot races in Oppara. But the urban poor, and even the middle class... they'll be smacked down hard, if they're caught. But they mostly won't be caught.

And then in the villages - where they still worship Erastil behind the priest's backs, and probably have Pharasmin clerics, and possibly make deals with druids, and where the government has never managed to crack down meaningfully - any of these that make it there will never, ever be found.

Goddess, this is going to be huge.

He likes their project. Leveling society on a grand scale. So much harder to control than literacy and printing books. Broadcasting is still extremely difficult, and he'd been resentful of it initially, that it clearly was going to be propaganda for the powerful, but instead it's propaganda for... something else. "We think the truth can do very nearly everything" is Galtan, almost, but "a world united can beat them into the dust" is something that reminds him of Abadar more than anything else, though that's still badly wrong.

Assuming there's any truth in it. Which he probably shouldn't.

He'd be putting Tibex and Jamisa and their children at risk. And his acolyte Sarakaske. He's in a dangerous position, as stable as he's managed to make it.

He wants to keep listening anyway. There's something in the back of his mind which wants nothing more than to hear from someone who cares about this.

Gods all, he hates being pragmatic.

He gets rid of them the day it's announced they're contraband. He 'loses' (throws in a drain) the key to Tibex's quarters, and tells him he has, and that he'll let him know when he gets a locksmith in to change it. (That will be 'never'.)

His congregation largely keep their radios. Oh, they say they 'heard from someone who's listening', but they know they're listening themselves, and he knows they are, and they know he knows, and they all have plausible deniability. Most of them don't listen to the Voice of Freedom. But several say they think their children might be.

He hoped that would be enough to satisfy him, but he keeps scheming in dull moments. Luckily, one of the ideas is sufficient.

He very publicly is available and taking consultations during the time the Voice of Freedom is active. (Everyone knows when that is. Either you're listening, or you're making very sure you're obviously not listening.)

He is also, three to four hours earlier, ducking into an attic garret he rents under a false face (they know he's disguised but think it's for an affair), and leaving an unseen servant cast with prayer beads, telling it to write down everything said on the radio until its duration expires. And then picking that up the next morning. His plan is to make it often with a dimension door so he isn't reliably seen on those mornings.

Which means that the first one he reads is

House Thrune is losing. Many of you have been lied to about history, so let me spell it out. In Aspex's time, the Empire - the greatest power in all of Avistan - stretched as far north as Lastwall and Varisia and as far south as some holdings on the Mwangi coast. The Empire grew and prospered until Aroden's death, and then it collapsed into thirty years of devastating civil war, egged on by Asmodeus. Now, let me tell you some things about thirty years of war. The ordinary people die, when the soldiers take all the food they need for the next harvest. Disciplined soldiers moving through their own territory will have enough sense to leave some food. But as the war dragged on, the soldiers got worse. The first year that you leave a family with barely any food for winter, their children die, and their elderly. The next year, or maybe the year after that, they all die. Then the people in the cities where the food was taken die too. People get out, if they can, and starve, if they can't. No natural war I know of has endured as long as this one at the intensity of this one; it endured so long only because Asmodeus was making it.

Asmodeus robbed Cheliax, crippled it and leached it and starved it, for thirty years, until he could puppet some cowards to the top of the pile of corpses he'd made of their country and declare them in charge.

Theopho is not as sheltered from the truth as most Chelish people, even most nobles who have the latitude to break laws as long as they aren't too egregious.

This is still not an explanation he had ever considered. He'd thought it was a matter of several gods and factions competing and investing far too much resources into the war even as it stretched on. But it makes sense, more sense, and it makes him a little sick.

He doesn't often think about his decision to return home, after he got empowered. He learned more, later - he was wrong, somewhat, about his alternatives. His costs are sunk, though, and it doesn't help to second-guess himself.

But right now, he's doing it anyway.

They worship an Evil, weak, pathetic god, that could only with enormous effort and expense manage to wrap his fingers around the throat of my homeland, and mortals have spent every minute since breaking those fingers one by one and prying him loose. And there aren't very many fingers left. 

The Thrunes are weak. It makes sense; strong and free people have their choice of employers, so Asmodeus can only work with slaves, or people too stupid to realize they're getting a bad deal, or people who no one else would ever choose to work with. In nearly every case I've ever heard of, a dynasty as incompetent and wasteful and self-destructive and infighting-happy as the Thrunes would be overthrown, and good riddance. But Hell keeps its puppets in power; it has to. All the rest of its puppets are somehow even worse."

Is he getting a bad deal? He has maintained Lawful Neutral (with difficulty) and expects that he'll be able to visit Axis from the Gardens of Erecura. He's insulated from political infighting by distance and usefulness to some of the other minor factions, and he's able to visit family - who aren't nice people but are his - and it's, as far as he can tell, stable.

He doesn't hate the Thrunes. He does go out of his way not to interact with them except when they come to him or, unfortunately, directly summon him, because he kind of suspects he might start to hate them if he interacted with them more. (He's had that reaction to a lot of higher nobility. All but one, really.) Hating them is not, actually, illegal, as long as it doesn't turn into disloyalty - and he's not in line for any kind of title or inheritance, so he's basically safe from being declared an aspiring traitor hoping to seize a title from its rightful holder. And also he has the custom-made headband that protects against detect thoughts. He doesn't hate them... but it's certainly true that they have a lot of infighting. One of the most common subjects he's asked for advice on, from nobles, is how to best insulate themselves from the current infighting. And 'current' keeps changing. They seem competent at their goals... but they've lost a lot of ground to rebellions, actually, so maybe that's more about what they present as their goals than the natural convergent goals of a healthy dynasty. Histories tend to emphasize how much infighting Taldor has had, and he's never gotten reason to think that was wrong even when traveling... but this doesn't ring false, if he's honest with himself.

...Tessane would be better at keeping people in line without infighting than the Thrunes, honestly. Really, most of her family would be - no one's 'slipped on the stairs' in at least the youngest two generations, unless you count sending Maexim to the Worldwound. (Which honestly Theo does, but that wouldn't have worked to get him killed if he was worth salvaging. Being smart enough or dangerous enough or self-aware enough would have been sufficient. Maexim was a prideful idiot and they got the trash to take itself out.) And it's not like the Jeggares don't maneuver against each other, viciously, they just keep their claws in with their family as long as no one crosses a line. (Tess told him she'd made clear through the family's whisper network that pulling him in as stakes would cross the line, in addition to pissing off a church. He didn't have a word for how he felt about that, because Chelish Taldane doesn't have a word for 'sweet'.)

And... Freedom is right. For all the same reasons they're functional, they'd be bad monarchs for Asmodeus. They made their deal, long ago, ostensibly an infernal one but they bear the cost on their bodies and sometimes minds. No soul-sale he's ever heard of did that. They're an old, old family, which she's pretty sure has never made a play for the crown, despite marrying into the old royal line, because it's far safer to be high-nobility power-brokers. They're Lawful and Evil and... pretty good Asmodeans, but... they'd run the country differently. Smoother. Less Asmodeanly.

(Better.)

He skims over the embarrassing stories about the Thrunes, nothing good will come of knowing those whether or not they're true. Even claiming to be a rebel and demonstrating it by (legally if not factually) defaming the ruling house wouldn't work, if it's been on the radio and everyone knows it. The 'lies the Thrunes thought they could get us to believe' is... sobering, because a few of those he had believed, at least tacitly, though on having it pointed out that they're false, it's obvious. (Most of them he learned before he left for Rahadoum and never gotten particular cause to reinspect, there or since returning.)

Obviously if she had any sense she could escape that fate. Get her soul trapped. Plane Shift to Heaven and beg them for help. Hire the best lawyers in Creation to try to find a way free of her contract. Why doesn't she? Well, part of the answer is that if you're the kind of person who realizes you don't want to go to Hell and does something about it, you're too smart for Asmodeus to put on the throne of Cheliax.

Oof. Oh, this is going to infuriate the Thrunes. And almost all the nobility. Except a few who will feel smug and perform fury to fit in. (It's also another strike against the Jeggares, too.)

Part of the answer is that Asmodeans have built up this long list of lies and rationalizations, and she may genuinely believe she's too special to be tortured in Hell. She's not, but she may believe it. Part of the answer is that Asmodeans try to insist that everyone goes to Hell, that there's nothing else, and - there is something else.

That everyone goes to Hell, or goes somewhere which will in time be made into Hell and punished for not being Hell to start with. Who's going to stop him, Pharasma? Iomedae? He's not exactly a patriotic Asmodean, he still despises basically all the gods for being gods, but that claim has never seemed all that much of a stretch.

Asmodeus also claims that he's going to conquer the other afterlives, but I have seen the weapons of war that are made by free hands in the defense of free lands and when you see them too you'll know that's just another lie of His. Evil has to fear the strength of its own people. Good doesn't. Cheliax has to closely monitor all its wizards because most of them defect at fifth circle, the minute they can Teleport to freedom. Good countries rejoice on learning that their wizards have reached fifth circle because their strength strengthens everyone.

Well, it's an argument. True as far as it goes - even bigoted Lawful Neutrals like Osirion are uncomplicatedly happy to see their people rise, assuming they keep their deals. But Evil has tools Good won't countenance, and endless coffers made by its slaves, and...

Wait.

weapons made by free hands in the defense of free lands and when you see them too

So that's the endgame. War. Soon. Maybe not this year, but this decade. And Freedom is involved in it.

...That's a pretty good excuse for why he needs to be listening, actually. The rune-reader needs all the facts percolating, to extract the vapors of nuance and have useful advice. Chelish Intelligence has certainly noticed the straightforward implication of war, but he's sure there's more to pull out of that, and he can understand her mindset better than an Intelligence veteran. He's never managed to talk with real Iomedans, they won't trust anyone Chelish, but he's known Lawful Good wizards and sorcerers.

Doesn't mean he'll actually tell them everything he's inferring...

No. He has to let himself think about this. His position is protective, as is the custom headband it has allowed him to get away with.

Doesn't mean he'll actually tell them everything he's inferring. Or does it? Is he risking himself for this? Is it worth it? Goddess does he wish he could get commune. (But he's shit at combat casting and high-stakes political maneuvering only gets you so far even if failure usually means torture, let alone that he's slowed down by theurgy, so he's not fifth-circle and is never likely to be.)

There's going to be a war. And not just the expected one against Cyprian. It might still be Cyprian but if so he has some new weapons. Related to the radio, presumably. Just to get Worldwound production for the same facilities building weapons? That's shaky. Just for that and Freedom Radio? No way would it tilt the balance enough to make them try it. More complicated than that. Especially if Freedom is really from Chelish soil and got out this young, that is confusing as hell. ...Possibly just that they're trying to reinforce the Worldwound for the inevitable Chelish withdrawal, if they're deploying to the Wound and Abadarans are paying for the effects on trade, then adding a propaganda station is clearly worth it, both directly and to weaken Cheliax relative to others by crippling its ability to use radio without suffering internal dissent and weakness.

Does he, selfishly, want the House of Thrune to win that war?

Cyprian's a conquering nepotistic tyrant, but the only reason Abrogail isn't is because she doesn't have the resources to do the conquering. And...

Asmodeus has to combat the natural human instinct to love one's children, the natural human instinct to love one's parents, the natural human instinct to love one's self, because all of those loves will guide you out of Hell, if you let them.

The more he thinks about this, the more he remembers that makes it sound true. And that fills him with a distant despair.

Theo is not a brave man.

He doesn't want to be a rebel.

But he is, somehow, still rather an idealist.

What's his play?

He won't offer advice until asked. But he does want to have something ready when they ask, because someone will, if not the Crown, then the Church, or at least the Tower or House of Secrets.

Freedom. Her identity. It's a mystery, and one he's better-equipped to solve than anyone else they can safely ask. And it might matter, and he's curious. He'll try to work it out, mostly sincerely, and promise to keep them updated.

And if he's also thinking about other factors they're likely to discount having not seen other countries, they don't need to know that.

Later that week, a priest of Dispater visits to formally request counsel on the matter of the radio broadcasts.

Theopho truthfully denies any relevant knowledge on the technology, but suggests that having traveled more widely, he may be better at predicting the speakers, and particularly he'd be interested in trying to analyze Freedom, especially if he could get permission to listen to the broadcasts directly rather than hear about them second- or third-hand, which he has legibly not been doing in order not to strain the leniency he is formally entitled to.

He's told the request and suggestion will make their way to the Most High, and he will receive a confiscated radio if it's granted.

He shares what he's deduced - very unusual background, not an ordinary Galtan or Andoren philosophically, clearly involved in an arms production scheme - and then wishes them well and sees them off.

He doesn't get a response by the next week, so he's reading the broadcast again.

My family was rich, but not so rich that we could call a powerful priest for a sick baby, and so we prayed for them, and when our prayers were not enough we buried them. Three of my sisters, two of my brothers. The gods didn't do that. So what did?

Hmm. That's odd, even for Cheliax where spontaneous healing is scarce.

The rest is, in its own way, as obscure and innovative as the radio, he thinks. More understanding than they have of disease, even in Rahadoum where they have to treat everything without clerics. Someone's a genius, wherever they're planning these.

And then:

Are you all right?

Oh, I'm quite well. I was saying that I'm told it's possible to save born-early babies but you have to keep them warm and get them good air, and how do you do both of those things at once?

Yeah, something happened, there.

I do feel obliged to confess that my earlier answer to you was only half-true. You noticed I seemed - surprised by something?

You did.

Someone tried to cast a Wish, to interrupt our conversation. Now, it could be that they hate early-born babies, but that wouldn't actually be my guess.

 

And my guess as to who ordered this, of course, is Abrogail Thrune.

Imagine you're Abrogail Thrune. You've got a lot of problems, as we talked about last week. Your country is poor, and Asmodeus is strangling it. Much of what he destroyed to conquer it has never been rebuilt.

 

Cyprian's a better commander than anyone who has ever worked for you, and a lot of your wizards work for him because Cheliax can't keep people who have the power to leave. Felandriel Morgethai's a better wizard than any of yours.

Also, there's a teenage girl making fun of you on the radio.

Oh, this is going to make everyone furious.

But you possess the means to harness untold arcane power to solve your problems! You can do things that many gods wish mortals did not dare to dream of! You can cast a Wish, and rewrite all of reality to suit your vision!

Wait, they don't have an archmage. So where's the wish- pit fiends. Gorthoklek has one. He wouldn't waste it on Freedom alone, probably, but if Theopho recalls his research properly the known wording for transporting people with a wish affects a dozen or more people. Probably they tried for Cyprian, and Morgethai, Whichever of Iomedae's people is in charge of invading Cheliax, and the one in charge of Andoran, and some pretenders or defectors or whoever Chelish Intelligence thinks are most worth trying.

Gorthoklek's wish is just once a year.

I guess we'll see in spring how confident they are in the 'weapons forged by free hands'.

Abby - can I call you Abby - glad to have you among our listeners! Use the next one for your Wisdom! …you know, I say that, and it's good advice, but it's also kind of mean advice, because they wouldn't let her. She can't cast Wishes herself. Hell's supplying them. If she tells Asmodeus that she wants a Wish to kidnap people off radio shows, sure, he's happy to supply that, it's Evil and it's …at least dubiously lawful - I am arguably a Chelish subject - and it's her playing Hell's stupid, stupid game, where the most important thing in the world is your pride. So they'll give her the Wish, if that's what she wants it for. If she asks for a Wish for her Wisdom - if she asks for a Wish to make Cheliax strong and rich and free - well, Hell will turn out, shockingly, to be out of Wishes today. Or they'll kill her.

Oh, that seems like exaggeration. Theopho has briefly interacted with Aspexia Rugatonn, and she was scarily insightful. More dedicated to Asmodeus than the Crown, of course, but not because she had to be, because it achieved her goals for herself. And while he has assiduously avoided coming directly into contact with Her Infernal Majestrix Abrogail Thrune II, she seems plenty aligned with Hell, and like she's at odds only on Law, if anything, which tends to be something increased Wisdom helps with.

A Hellknight of the Rack and a priest of Asmodeus stop by his temple later that week with a radio, written authorization to use it where no one else can hear, and some further notes about what he may not speak of from what he hears.

Then he can dismantle his secret recording nest and set it up in his apartments and both listen and transcribe it all.

He'll apologize to one of his counselees who'd made a regular appointment during Freedom's hour that he has new duties that are time-sensitive and will have to move it. She correctly guesses that he's gotten permission to listen, and is surprised; he begs off explaining on the ground of it being a sensitive Church matter.

He really is interested in who in the void she is. And keeps being so, week after week. He has separate notes, where he transcribes the parts that seem most important to understanding who she is, where she came from, and how she thinks.

It's possible to do all kinds of reckless and ill-advised things responsibly. But many of the people trying will, in fact, ruin their lives.

and

You could also just tell everyone not to pledge obedience in marriage. Some places don’t.

it is in any event the absolute right of any person to pursue their eccentric vision of the good alongside those who share it, if they don’t endanger children thereby.

that they raise honorable sons and honorable daughters and that the sons and the daughters make the same promises, and strive to fairly share the burdens of life and to make its crucial decisions together.

I will say that I stayed once with a woman who refused to ever even hit a child, no matter what they did, and it worked, to raise honorable hardworking children.

Probably we shouldn’t have that situation, and the law should treat men and women just alike. The law should treat alike many peoples who are different.
the law does not assess our character, and should be consistent and impartial.

But when we address disease and learn to build paradise in this world, cities will be much improved, and then He’ll be wrong

and a substantial volume about slavery, which is unsurprising given the Abadaran conversation; she doesn't have much to say critical of Andoran that week, which is probably because the guest was, he hears, wish-kidnapped and freed only with difficulty. Instead of moving parts of it over to his notes, he looks at the older ones, and something jumps out.

one day we will report from the soil of my birth, in Cheliax, and we'll build paradise together

Something's been bugging him about that line since he first read it. It doesn't sound like Galt, or Andoran, or anyone else. A little bit of each, a little Rahadi even, but it's a strange emphasis.

...He has a hunch. He asks some of his contacts whether it is permissible for a priest or noble to acquire a copy of Aroden's holy book. He's not sure what he expects to learn, but something about Cheliax in the past Ages might be important.

It's restricted but legal. He skims The History and Future of Humanity, and the similarity practically jumps off the page. This girl was raised by Arodenites. Also he actually likes Aroden surprisingly much.

Where in the void can you still find Arodenites?

Given everything else, presumably in Andoran? That does not make him all that much less confused.

the rest of the world, looking at Andoran, might reasonably think that democracy and a national ethos of irresponsibility go hand in hand, and the opinion that no state worth emulating has beggar children on its streets, and that if it were true of humans that this was what freedom produced then that would be fairly discouraging

have in their hearts grace and mercy and the knowledge that no one can actually be so virtuous as to be spared all misfortune

Those things aren't all right and I don't like being lied to.

Codwin's interview adds to the notes...

He's thinking aged Chelish exiles, maybe half-elves or planetouched, who adopt any children smuggled out of Cheliax and try to raise them as they would have been in Old Cheliax. It's not a confident theory, but it seems better than anything else he's thought of.

Some things don't go in the notes but hit him hard personally.

If sympathy takes the form of claiming that if you're wronged enough yourself it's okay to start doing Evil - well, it's not.

He's known for years he's a complete hypocrite. Hating the gods, serving one. Having principles, working indirectly for a Church which supports none of them and despises some. It doesn't usually bother him.

Somehow this bites deep into it anyway.

The local priest of Dispater comes by that week.

"High Priest of the Runes. What progress have you made in assessing 'Freedom'?"

"I believe, with fairly high confidence, that she was raised by Arodenites. I obtained a licit copy of the dead god's holy book, and there's clear similarities. Much more than with Iomedans or other faiths I'd suspect."