Going Once, Going Twice (short story)

 was the third short story in The Book of the Peace, written by Jacob Black. It was a partial sequel to Black's short story A Bloody (And Public) Domaine in The Book of the Enemy as well as to the audio series The True History of Faction Paradox, introducing new facets to the history between the Great Houses and the Osirians.

The story was also notable for featuring the apparently final death of Godfather Auteur, who met his end by being consumed by Apep during a foolhardy attempt to escape his imprisonment in the Shadow Spire.

Summary
Auteur tries to take advantage of the Crime Lady Cortalian's First Auction in Heaven to merge with the ancient being Apep and escape the Shadow Spire. However, his plans are derailed by his own insane arrogance and by Kifah and Gustav, two of the low-ranking Faction Paradox refugees now living with him in the Shadow Spire, who would rather take their chance at the Auction to rescue their lost comrade (and Kifah's boyfriend), Intrepid.

Plot
to be added

Characters

 * Godfather Auteur
 * Mother
 * Father
 * Little Brother Kifah
 * Brother Intrepid
 * Brother Gustav
 * Sutekh
 * Horus (Eliza)
 * Cortalian
 * Bishop
 * Baron of Trilermeriaq
 * Baron of Trilermeriaq's lover
 * Ice Heiress
 * Duke
 * Apep
 * Member of the Cephalopodic Coterie
 * Technosapien
 * Homeworlder

Continuity

 * Auteur and the Shadow Spire previously featured in PROSE: A Bloody (And Public) Domaine.
 * The Homeworlders are referred to as "Chronarchs" (COMIC: 4-D War) and "Watchmakers". (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet)
 * The observer effect is discussed. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors, The Gallifrey Chronicles, The Cosmology of the Spiral Politic, et al.)
 * Auteur writes in a circular language that can program history. (TV: Rose, et al.)
 * Remembering Mars, Gustav thinks of hives, (AUDIO: Red Dawn, TV: Empress of Mars) swords, and rituals. (PROSE: Legacy, COMIC: Descendance)
 * Some people attending the auction heard cries of Peace from angels (PROSE: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing) "skulled theatre troupes", (PROSE: What Keeps Their Lines Alive) and shadows that "seeped into their bedrooms at night". (PROSE: The Ugly Spirit)
 * Cortalian's Servitors are biodata-altered versions of massive, snake-like creatures from a forgotten swamp planet. (PROSE: Daring Initiation)
 * Kifah recalls that the War in Heaven has a history with auctions, usually "an exclusive event of a select few Wartime powers and one or two lucky lesser species" over "a bit of weaponry here, an ancient relic there". (PROSE: Alien Bodies)
 * Disembodied body parts of Homeworlders are sold with under the tagline "grow your own lord of history". (TV: Journey's End)
 * Items on auction include star systems in glass bottles, (PROSE: Dead Romance) red rockets "programmed to wapr reality and knock entire cities into a postmodern nightmare", (PROSE: This Town Will Never Let Us Go) a Homeworlder hybrid shrunk into a bottle, (COMIC: Return of the Daleks) and the gear shaft of a bus-shaped timeship that crashed into the City of the Saved. (PROSE: A Hundred Words from a Civil War)
 * A technosapien attends the auction. (PROSE: Weapons Grade Snake Oil, Happily Ever After Is a High-Risk Strategy)
 * Mars is in a constant state of temporal flux (PROSE: The Ninnies on Putney Common, Iris Wildthyme of Mars) due to Homeworld experiments, the fight between Sutekh and Horus, (AUDIO: The Judgment of Sutekh) and the enemy's overwriting narrative. (PROSE: The Book of the Enemy)
 * Following the death of the Eleven-Day Empire, (AUDIO: The Shadow Play) Faction Paradox is scattered and being picked off one by one by forces such as the Houses and the enemy. (PROSE: A Farewell to Arms, )
 * Apep was created as a "failsafe" when the Great Houses, themselves masters of stellar engineering, became frightened of the Osirian Court's potential threat to the engineered sun at the heart of their own empire. (AUDIO: The Ship of a Billion Years)
 * Kifah witnesses the forced regeneration of a humanoid Homeworlder into a monstrous form. Such weaponised regenerations were documented by The Book of the War both in regen-inf soldiers and in born members of House Military such as Entarodora. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
 * Apep was inoculated with anti-time. (AUDIO: Zagreus)
 * Auteur summarises the schism and civil war among the Osirians. (AUDIO: Body Politic, Words from Nine Divinities, et al.)