“That’s sick.” But her voice is soft, without conviction. The thought both nauseates and compels her. “I don’t want anything to do with that.”
Her lover pulls themself up, straddling her. “No? Very well then. Perhaps you think that once you and she return to Ayothaya together as the great saviors, she’ll begin to look at you differently. See you the way you want to be seen. Oh, how proximity will change the circumstances, the currents of what lies between you; how being celebrated together as heroes will cement your bond. Is that the case? Is it what you believe, my jewel?”
“If that happens, it’ll happen. If not, then it won’t.”
“Recadat, beautiful Recadat. You had the will to reach Septet and the resolve to come this far. Yet you’ll leave your heart’s desire to chance and her caprices? She may never change. You may never have what you want. She is a monogamist, isn’t she? What if already she loves another, has entwined herself with—”
“Stop it.” She wants to turn away, wants to shove them off her, wants to never seek their touch again. If she can give up Thannarat, can accept that her old partner and she have a common goal in Ayothaya’s liberation and thus that must suffice; if she can change who she is and forget their history. All of that and she’d be free. It should be easy. People are disappointed in love all the time, a small grievance, petty in the grand scheme of things. Less than a speck of stardust—this is no great tragedy. “Give me a heart that doesn’t feel. Can you do that?”
“There are augments you can acquire that’ll deaden your emotions, delay the surge and sink of your brain chemistry. It’s trivial and you do not need the Divide for it.” Their breath is cool; the snakeskin sheathing their hands closes around her throat. Gently as yet, a loose hold. “Surely you can put the prize to better use.”
“There are only two things I want.”
“The love of a woman who does not love you back. The salvation of a world that—oh.” They smile down at her, beatific, the same smile they wear when they are about to take her; about to hurt her and make her plead for more. “I’ve asked you before. What do you think Detective Thannarat is after?”
At this moment Recadat does not want to think of anything. She wants sensual obliteration. She wants an asphyxiation of her consciousness. “The same thing I am, she’s said as much. What else would be pressing enough?”
“Recadat.” They kiss her brow, feather-light. “Has it occurred to you that she might have misled you and lied by omission? Does it seem like Ayothaya is on her mind?”
She sits up, nearly dislodging them. “You know what she actually wants.”
“I’m no mind-reader, jewel, merely good at guesswork, at deductions. You bore witness to how she reacted to the sight of her dead wife.”
That stricken look. The first and only time she’s ever seen Thannarat bent nearly to the point of breaking. “You mean she’s—going to ask the Mandate to give her an AI proxy who’ll replace Eurydice? That’s ridiculous. She knows it’s not the real thing. And no one could possibly be that selfish when their homeworld is at stake.”
“You’re a novice at selfishness. She is a veteran. Why is that so hard to believe? You’re obsessed with her and she is obsessed with her wife. Detective Thannarat is not given to nobility. She’d never have risked life and limb for Ayothaya.” They run a sharp fingernail down her throat, between her clavicles. “Don’t you think it’s time for you to try being selfish, my jewel?”
Chapter Seven
A long, narrow avenue. Deep night, the wind cool on my face. It takes me entire seconds to orient myself and realize I’m in a virtuality. Not one I’ve entered myself—my overlays have been annexed into another’s domain. My skin burns as though it’s being pricked by needles. This has never happened to me before, and within the Divide’s confines Daji should proof me against such intrusion.
The sky swarms with lanterns: topaz, citrine, amber—every color that natural flame can be. So incandescent that the stars have been outshone, expunged from their own fabric. From far off I hear the noises of a night market and temple songs, cymbals and hand-drums. This is Ayothaya before the invasion, before the Hellenes brought their pantheon and demanded we convert. Colonization follows a predictable procedure, bureaucratic almost, the steps as ancient as the invention of the written word—first the violence, then the erasure, then the replacement. Left unopposed, they would have Ayothaya’s population call ourselves Hellenic within a few generations; that or they would begin a program of ethnic cleansing and transplants that would leave us diminished and eventually extinct.
A figure bearing a paper lantern draws toward me. It is dressed in gold, and when it is close it puts a finger to its lips. “This is a sandboxed virtuality,” Chun Hyang says, in a voice like the rumbling of a large cat, jaguar or panther. “I made this so I could reach you without Daji or my duelist knowing. You may leave any time, Khun Thannarat, though I’d like to talk.”
“Why?”
“My current duelist does not suit me. And your regalia could not possibly suit you.”
I watch the lantern-light flicker across Chun Hyang’s eyes. One of them is the normal black, the other is compound, alternating between red and yellow cells. Disturbing once you discern what you’re seeing. “An interesting assessment. I was under the impression you and your duelist were in utter harmony.”
It cants its face, which is composed from the fragile planes of a passerine skull. Daji’s features are all strong lines and bold cheekbones; Chun Hyang is faint brushstrokes, perfect but less distinct. “How do you feel about carnage, Khun Thannarat?”
“Regrettable. But if you’re seeking a gentle pacifist, you’re looking in the wrong place.”
“You relish the mechanisms and techniques of violence—the pump of adrenaline, the practical demonstration of your power, those are what you delight in. Isn’t that the case? You don’t like mess for the sake of it. If I offer up a hundred tame buffalos for you to slaughter, you’d spurn it because you don’t enjoy butchering as its own end. You want a fight, a challenge. To you it is a sport.”
“And to Ensine Balaskas it is otherwise?”
“She wishes to exert herself upon the universe. If she had her way she’d find the jugular of space-time and puncture it, and drench the galaxies with their own gore and marrow for her own satisfaction.”
“Physically impossible,” I say mildly. “Are you saying that if she wins she’ll ask for an extinction event?”
“Of a particular world, yes.” Chun Hyang sets the lantern on the ground. Around us a crowd streams past, ghostly, ephemeral. “That should interest you somewhat, considering.”
Balaskas is a Greek surname, but there’s no Hellenic commander called that. I had not made the assumption, and when I saw Ensine none of her phenotypic markers struck me as common to the Javelin of Hellenes. “If her goals are so incompatible with yours, why not throw the game? It’s not as if she can engage the services of another regalia.” There being none left other than mine and Ouru’s.
“That would bring dishonor to my name, Khun Thannarat. Such things have meaning to me. I’ll tell you that while Daji may be a fine fighter one on one, she is young and has never been at war.” It takes another step closer. “Before the Mandate arose, I was a warship. I have piloted entire armies: I was the fortress on which enemy commanders broke themselves. I know how to warp tesseract aegis, how to strike deep in the engine-core of a ship and bend its hull like paper. There’s no defense any human military can put up against me, and no offense I cannot reduce to ashes. The Hellenes would be repelled in little time.”
“An extravagant offer.” I glance at one of the children running by us, but they’re as indistinct as the rest, blots of colors and rough graphite lines. Not an especially detailed virtuality; probably Chun Hyang doesn’t know much about Ayothaya. “How would we go about it? I haven’t the faintest how a duelist may detach themselves from a regalia, or vice versa.”
“First you destroy Ensine Balaskas�
��I may not do that myself without risking expulsion from the game—and then you extinguish Daji. The Locust command would do it, if you have access to such.”
The reason Daji told me not to touch that. “That would leave me defenseless. What do you suppose would entice me to do such a thing? I’m sure your credential in mass murder and so forth is excellent, but I already have a partner capable of similar feats.”
Behind the regalia a line of people, arms full of lantern floats, descend from an endless staircase. Their feet hover several centimeters off the ground, their hands are tipped in copper nail-guards, and each wears a fox mask: white porcelain, slashes of red for eyes. A hawk cries out overhead and falls down dead two paces from me, dashed against gravity in a brittle, bloody mess.
“Daji didn’t tell you, did she?” Chun Hyang’s Glaive runs its fingers down its long braid, drawing from it strands of luminescence: pale spiderwebs that flutter and tangle in its hand, grow along the path of its wrist like fast-spreading weeds. “She holds sufficient data to recreate a person. That means she can reconstruct your wife—that failed haruspex—in her entirety. And should you win, Khun Thannarat, she would have to do it whether she’s willing or not. The Mandate honors its promises. The fulfillment of the Court of Divide is taken seriously.”
Whether she’s willing or not. “You must know a great deal about me.” And must have been behind the clone with my wife’s face. Ensine Balaskas couldn’t possibly have had access. “If you’d like my cooperation, it seems fair that you give too. What are you going to get out of the tournament?”
Chun Hyang is now close enough to touch. It does so. A hand with surprisingly blunt fingers tipped in sharp, dandelion-yellow nails that graze over my skin, opening a line of blood. There’s no pain—this is illusory, this is virtuality. “An old score I desire to settle with one of the AIs that created Septet. Once I win again the conditions to my philosophical victory will be fulfilled, and I will expose at last the game’s limitations.”
“To what end?”
The AI makes a small gesture. “To dismantle the Court of Divide. But my rationale for that is beyond your purview. That is another advantage I offer, Khun Thannarat—freedom. Daji would fetter you to her forever, that’s what she yearns for the most, since her longings are so . . . human. With me we would finish our business and then part ways. You’ll have the liberty to pursue your own destiny. Not hers.”
Passion is a form of bondage: I’ve always known that. To offer up your heart—or at least your libido—to a lover is to lose a piece of yourself, to take a piece of theirs and assimilate it into your own system. An exchange that pierces deep, that plants the seed for a flowering metamorphosis. The love may end. You will emerge from its chrysalis altered all the same.
And while it lasts, you are yoked to this passion; you give your life to it, the same you’d give to any faith or ideology. I know that too.
“I’ve considered my options,” I say, “and the parameters of your proposal. I fear I will have to offend you and turn it down. I’m a woman of pragmatism—why would I trade a regalia I know for one I don’t?”
Chun Hyang picks the lantern back up. It strokes the thin, taut paper; it punctures and the flame bleeds through, a sudden conflagration. “I did suspect you would say that. One last warning I’ll give you is that my duelist oscillates in her wishes; she may desire not an extinction event but the ownership and domination of her worthiest opponent. Whichever duelist matched against her in the finale may become her possession. A hollow puppet, installed with compliance devices, that will obey her every whim for the rest of their natural life. I hope you will not come to regret your choice later—this is the sole opportunity you will have to shift course.”
“Much appreciated that you thought of me.”
I anticipate that the virtuality would turn into an aggression vector, clawing at the defenses of my overlays, prying at the link that joins me to Daji. But Chun Hyang’s Glaive is as good as its word, for this occasion. The facsimile Ayothaya fades. I’m back in the Vimana bed, with Daji clasped to me, the bouquet of her filling my nose and the fire opal gleaming on her in the dim.
A message from Ouru informing me that ze will be nearby when I meet with Ensine Balaskas, and will lend a hand should it appear I require help, but will commit to nothing else. Fair enough. I reply with my thanks.
To Daji I say, “Could I entertain you somewhere? Libretto doesn’t boast much, but there’s allegedly an aquarium.”
She makes a sleepy sound. “In this climate? Wherever you take me will be my utter delight, but I thought we were preparing for Balaskas.”
“We have a little time, and I haven’t properly courted you at all.”
“You’re so romantic.” She giggles. “When this is finished, you must take me to see such gorgeous things. You’ll clothe me in the finest pearls. But first we get to the perfumer so I can finally buy you that cologne.”
We dress, or rather I do—she, as ever, simply rearranges the outer shell of her chassis. A sheath dress whose skirt is like storm-whipped clouds and whose back gleams with layered steel plating. She mounts the fire opal on her bare bicep, as though to broadcast that she belongs to me.
Our stop at the boutique is brief and expensive; Daji pays and applies the cologne—a dab on my wrist, which she embellishes with her kiss. Her mouth leaves behind a tiny spot of gold. “So any woman who gets a little too close will know you’re taken,” she says, half-seriously.
The aquarium is a tunnel winding through a seascape: first the shallows with their sun-dappled reefs and lustrous schools, then the depths with their sharks and glistening jellyfishes, then the hadopelagic. Here the creatures become deeply alien, serrated and bioluminescent, sharp spikes and curlicue tails. Maws like the space between stars.
At the darkest point in the aquarium, Daji pulls me to her. “No matter how this turns out, I want you to keep a piece of me.” She draws something from within the folds of her roiling dress and puts it in my hand.
It is a knife, a miniature replica of her sword. An odd basket hilt that collapses into a more conventional one at a touch, but which buds with tiny white roses when unfolded. The sheath is carbon-black with tantalizing glimmers of cherry, claret, sangria.
“Gorgeous exactly the way you are.” I raise the hilt and bring the roses to my lips. “I’ll cherish it as I cherish you.”
Her mood lightens as we return to the brighter sections, and she tells me gossip about the overseer Wonsul’s Exegesis. “Here’s something you didn’t know about Benzaiten in Autumn—xe and Wonsul are lovers, on and off. Mostly off, since Benzaiten is on the move so much and he’s so . . . rooted.”
“Not an uncommon dynamic.”
“Nor one I’d tolerate. Wonsul isn’t even happy with the arrangement; he pines professionally. I swear the two of them fetishize being apart.”
“So the reunion would be all the more piquant?”
Daji mock-shudders. “No thank you. I want to be with my beloved as much as possible. Apart when necessary, yes, but otherwise an uninterrupted line—like a necklace, or like a marriage. Not this start-stop business. It’s a miserable state.”
We exit the aquarium into the hot, bright day. Scorching. Daji doesn’t sweat—no damp spots on her dress, all flawless silk. Standing between the aquarium’s shade and Septet’s punishing sun, I imagine showing Daji one of Ayothaya’s great rivers, so big that on the ground you might think you’re looking at oceanic shores.
On that world—my world—the delineation between bodies of water blurs. In monsoon seasons it can feel as though an entire city could be swept away. I often think of it as a battle of attrition, that the rivers must win in the end. Water overtakes. Even metropolises will eventually yield, buildings sinking and sodden, streets drowned. I imagine people growing sleek and scaled, and the planet cleansing itself in an apocalyptic flood. Even before the Hellenes came Ayothaya was not a place of purity. It could be ugly; its people could be hideous in conduct and inte
nt, like anywhere else. I’ve never loved Ayothaya, not really. I joined an institution I believed would serve the public and discovered only filth. Patriotism has never informed my decisions.
But to have a home you regard with ambivalence and to not have it at all are different beasts. You do not expect to lose a world, and I do want to show Daji the places of my nostalgia.
Daji nudges my shoulder with her pointed chin. “Tell me what’s preoccupying you, Detective. I’ve made myself stunning and you’re not paying attention to me.”
“On the contrary, I’m wondering what you would think of Ayothaya. Parts of it are picturesque, parts of it much less so.” I cock my head. “The invasion didn’t help. Some places are in ruins.”
“Cities can be rebuilt, that’s their entire point. And wherever you are is my refuge—my living, walking treasury; you contain all the things I find beautiful.”
She makes it so easy to say yes; she makes it so easy to surrender, to shed my armor—to want to bare myself to her, whole and entire. “You flatter me.”
Daji tucks her hand into the crook of my elbow. “I am an honest AI. Shall we go look for more memories to make before our next battle? There’s a tailor, and while you’re already devastatingly handsome, I have a few cuff-links in mind . . . ”
My appointment with Ensine Balaskas brings me back to the ecodome. Different at night; the waterfalls have been turned off. Quiet reigns in shades of blue and green, in dappled gray.
Balaskas is waiting for me by one of the ponds. She sits atop a boulder, Eurydice’s clone at her feet. Leashed, as before, her stare blank and remote. Its stare—this is not Eurydice, not even a person. Chun Hyang’s Glaive is nowhere in sight.
This time Daji doesn’t react: she is near, our link is stable, and her second proxy—back in fox form—rests quiescent inside my coat.
“No Chun Hyang?” I ask as I approach, my hands at my sides to show that as of yet I haven’t drawn.
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