The Tyrant

by Seth Dickinson

  Which was a little lie. Barhu had been too far to hear the Stag Duke’s last stand. But why not lie a little? Just to help?

  Duchess Heingyl blinked, blinked again, swallowed, and clasped Barhu’s hand hard. “Well,” she said, hoarsely, “it happened just the way he’d always dreamt.”

  Reward her for that raw moment; compliment her cunning. “When you met me on the day of my arrival . . . were you trying to warn me against Nayauru?”

  “Yes.” Heia laughed and sniffed. “Poor Au. She wanted so badly to be queen. And if she had, if she’d united the Midlands and the North, the Stakhieczi would have come straight for her, by marriage or by war. So I had to stop her, my own cousin, or I would’ve lost it all. . . .”

  “She was a great woman.”

  “And ambitious.”

  Barhu winked. “My favorite sort.”

  “Some of her relatives are still at large. I fear they’ve gone north, into the mountains. . . .”

  “Don’t fear, Heia. I have an agent in place. He says Nayauru Aia’s suit to the king is weak.”

  “You’re very well informed.”

  “I like to show off,” Barhu said, circling her, “when I think my talents will be appreciated.”

  “Then perhaps,” Heia said, breathing hard, taxed by the pace herself, “you could tell me why Yawa was so eager to introduce us. And why you’re still meddling in our province.”

  Barhu dipped her halfway to the floor. Heia gasped and clung. Her garment moved charmingly with her breath.

  Barhu said: “I want to marry you.”

  Heingyl Ri looked blank. “What?”

  “By the law of the Mansions, I am the rightful lord of the Mansion Uczenith. By the acclamation of the Dukes of Aurdwynn, I am the Queen of the Realm. Marry me, and you will have claim to these titles. Your child will inherit them.”

  “But you’re—” Heingyl Ri flushed pink. “Are you saying you’re . . . you can father children?”

  Barhu did not laugh: it was a perfectly reasonable question. “No. But I can be a man in Stakhieczi eyes. Man enough to be recognized as Duchess Vultjag’s consort. And certainly man enough to marry you.”

  “Vultjag!? What does she have to do with—you married Vultjag? Oh! I always knew she’d do something intolerably superb.”

  “She won the claim to Mansion Uczenith by defeating the lord Kubarycz in single combat. It’s the law of the Mansions that if one lord exterminates another Mansion’s line, he must accept responsibility for that Mansion’s welfare.”

  This was not so much enticement to duel and kill your rival lords as Barhu had feared. There had been two-Mansioned lords in Stakhieczi history, but they had smelled too much like kings, and the others had judged their avarice Unnecessary. Out with their ambition, off with their scalps.

  It might be different this time. It might.

  She went on: “One of the Necessary King’s knights witnessed my marriage. To question his word would be to question the king’s. He is in the Stakhieczi court now, telling the king that you must be the bride of the mountains. Imagine if you came to him as the best claimant to the Mansion Uczenith, his enemy!”

  “Would the Stakhi recognize our marriage? Yours and mine?”

  “If I prove I’m a man, and if it was to their king’s advantage, then certainly he would recognize it. The Stakhieczi believe that one’s sex is maintained by action, and that manhood can be gained or lost. They must have laws and customs to handle a noble changing sexes! I am sure those laws could be turned to our advantage.”

  “How would you prove you were a man—” Heia, pale-skinned, flushed brighter. “Oh.”

  Barhu gave her slack to draw away if she felt repulsed. “It only needs to be the impression, Heia. We needn’t conduct the act.”

  “But how could I possibly receive your claim? Stakhieczi women don’t inherit, especially not from husbands—you couldn’t yield the claims in a divorce.”

  “But the Stakhieczi die,” Barhu said, happily. “They die in great numbers, all the time. And when famine sweeps away all the men of a family, the widows have been known to receive the claim. There have been Weather Queens who inherited down a female line. There is precedent for the Necessary King to make it possible.” Barhu turned her swiftly, caught her breathless as she came round. “His own brother will be there to help him see it through.”

  “His brother?”

  “I’m sending him as messenger and negotiator of the match. All is arranged. It could be done by summer’s end. Peace in Aurdwynn, Heia. . . .”

  And with peace, trade. Access to the greatest source of metals and hard treasure in the world. Mountains and mountains of wealth, locked up in the Wintercrests, waiting to begin their southern rush. . . .

  “But I’m Bel’s wife!” Heia blurted it like she’d just remembered. “I don’t care how cleverly you’ve arranged everything, I’m already married to Bel.”

  “I loved Tain Hu,” Barhu said, softly, “as I’m sure you loved your father. But when the game required it, we . . . we parted.”

  “I’m not like you—”

  “You are like me, Heia. You want Aurdwynn safe more than you want anything—”

  “I am not like you!”

  The great window above them creaked. They looked up together, in surprise. The grid of glass swung open on oiled hinges.

  A cape of rain jetted into the ballroom. The ballgoers cried in protest. A man stood in the window in a scout’s mask and navy landing gear, and as the wet wind soaked through silk banners all around him, he seized a dangling draw-rope and leapt down to the balcony below. Red hair streamed behind him.

  From somewhere in the crowd, Rear Admiral Samne Maroyad shouted, “Who goes up there?”

  “Officers,” the man cried, “to your stations! I am Apparitor, the Emperor’s messenger, and here is my message, the enemy is upon us, we are all betrayed!”

  “Pardon me.” Barhu snapped a silver bracelet off Ri’s wrist, caught the chandelier light, and flashed it up at Apparitor to get his attention.

  What the fuck was going on? Who had betrayed them?

  Svir looked down at her from the balcony. Then he snapped up a flare pistol from his belt, leveled it at Barhu, and fired.

  The Eye came out of his clay-walled room, hairy legs protruding from his cassock, tumor stalk goggling in astonishment. When he saw the gore on Iraji’s face he shouted, “Child, what have you done?”

  “Rescued you,” Iraji said. But he swayed so dangerously that Aminata wanted to turn him over like an hourglass to put the blood back where it was needed.

  “Sir.” Osa greeted the onkos with hasty respect. “Their Federal Highness, Tau-indi Bosoka, begs you to help us retake this ship, and to save us all from a meaningless death. The Brain’s faction are loading plague into the rockets. They will attack.”

  A smile came across the Eye’s face, chasing, and chased by, grief. “Tau’s come back? Good. Good. I had hoped for that. Tau will know what to do. Let’s go.”

  And he walked to war.

  The Brain’s people scattered before the Eye like children at the edge of a rising bonfire. Fighters who could have killed him with a single thrust fled from his burning hands. Sailors covered their eyes and hid when he spoke. Aminata hated it. Every moment that the Eye’s power triumphed over the force of arms was torture. She almost wished for one of Masako’s Termites to raise a pistol and shoot the sorcerer dead, just to relieve the nightmare of his effect.

  But even if they disbelieved his power, even if they yanked him into the shadows, chopped him up and stuffed the pieces into the bilge . . . they were surrounded by those who believed in the Eye. And there were other Eyes in the line of Virios to avenge him.

  Masako blocked the Eye’s way with six Termites, rapiers drawn, pistols ready. The Eye looked them over coolly. “There is no clay in this floor. There are no tablets on these walls. If I speak here, you will hear me, and what I say will never leave your ears.”

  The Termites
looked uncertainly to Masako.

  Masako frowned. His rapier was steady. Everything, Aminata thought, was a sort of mild inconvenience to him. “Go back to your chambers,” he said.

  The Eye’s stalk glared at him: “Son of Segu, even if you shoot me dead here, I will live on to know your children’s children. Do not give me cause to remember you poorly.”

  A trickle of wet green light ran down his left wrist and dripped to the floor.

  “Stand aside,” Masako ordered. “No blood. Let them pass.”

  Aminata smirked at him. He tipped his head and cocked a brow, and, as she passed, murmured, “How is this going to look to the promotion board, Brevet-Captain Aminata? Magic. Not very hygienic. Not very hygienic at all.”

  One by one they gathered the Eye’s lieutenants. A woman with scarified dots across her cheeks, wearing an Invijay war costume, split poncho like moth wings. Two old librarians who embraced him like a son. A tiny person, who Aminata supposed must be a pygmy, wearing smoky glass lenses. By the time they spilled out onto the weather deck they were at least twenty strong, and singing in En Elu Aumor.

  “Oh, shit.” Aminata gaped up at Isla Cauteria, purple meadow and forest green and white-tipped rock. Dead off the bow. Far too close. Where were Maroyad’s pickets? Why hadn’t they been intercepted? “Iraji, we’ve crossed the Caul! We’re in the home seas!”

  The rigging swarmed with sailors. Eternal rode a following wind, all canvas raised, and her heel told Aminata that the torpedo hole in the starboard prow had come open again. They were shipping water.

  The Brain was sailing the ship apart in her hurry to attack.

  “Go gather our people,” the Eye ordered his lieutenants. “I will mark you, so they know you speak with my voice.” He lifted a bright hand and his followers took his fingers into their mouths, so their tongues glowed soft green, as if stained by his touch.

  “Where is Tau-indi?” he asked Osa. “I must see them.”

  “In the sterncastle.”

  Tau-indi waited in the doorway of their stateroom. “Virios. Welcome.”

  “Your Federal Highness.” The Eye turned his sad human eye back to Iraji, who trembled in Aminata and Osa’s arms. “You taught him the apotropaic spells?”

  “There were things I saw as a child which I sought too keenly to understand.” Their smile so genuine that Aminata might have sworn, against the word of her own memories, that Tau had never hated and despised the Cancrioth at all. “You look well. I’m glad the Brain left you unharmed.”

  “Nothing she could do to me matters compared to what she is about to do.” The Eye snarled in frustration. “She doesn’t give a damn about getting Abdumasi back. She’s going to attack Cauteria and force the war upon the world.”

  “Then we will stop her,” Tau said, fiercely. “Is everyone all right? Iraji, you look awful. Aminata, would you take him to the washroom and clean him up?”

  “Sure,” she muttered, not eager to stay, not happy to be dismissed. “C’mon, Iraji.”

  The Eye paused at the threshold, frowned at Tau, scratching at the skin below his tumor. “It’s good to see you smile, your Highness. But it’s a surprise. I’ve seen grudges linger for a thousand years over far less than what we did to you.”

  “Onkos,” Tau said, lifting their chin, baring their delicate neck, “I must do what good I can with what I have. If I can change so much when cut from trim, can you imagine how powerfully trim might change Baru? She has taken my place. She will help us. She will stop the war.”

  A feeling rose up in Aminata, a little like nausea in its power, a little like nostalgia because it was a yearning for something lost, a little like fantasy because it was the loss of something she’d never known before. Maybe it was reverence for majesty. Maybe it was a blood-deep joy at the rightness of this connection: she and Iraji and Osa and the Eye and Tau all come together to avert disaster.

  She waited for the scrutiny of her own internal Jurispotence, disgusted by such anti-Incrastic thoughts. But it didn’t come.

  “Can we stop the Brain?” The Eye paced, barefoot and dirty-toed. “What we saw at Kyprananoke . . . it was like the world shouted at us, you fools, you fight or you die. So many of my people went over to her. How can I ask them to go home and hide?”

  “Do not ask them to go home and hide,” Tau said. “Ask them to do better. Show the world that you are not the people who poisoned Kyprananoke.”

  “Show who? Falcrest? They’ll eat us alive. The Mbo?” The Eye laughed helplessly. “Marvel of compassion and forgiveness that you may be, Tau, I think you are an exception. If we went to the Mbo, they’d bury us and forget where.”

  Tau pushed two long falls of twisty black hair back behind their ears. “I don’t know. I do not know what will work. I only know what is right. I must try: and here is where I am.”

  “Oh, Tau. I can’t fight my own people. I don’t know how to turn them from this anger. . . .”

  “I know precisely how. There is something more powerful than anger, Virios. It is shame.”

  “How will we shame them?”

  “Simple,” Tau said. “We are going to put ourselves upon the weapons, so that they cannot kill their enemies without killing us.”

  But Aminata did not get to hear any more, because Iraji slumped into syncope. She carried him into the washroom, and, cupping seawater in her hands, cleaned the cancer from his face.

  “I have no idea what the fuck you did against the Brain,” she murmured to him, “but it was brave.”

  “I remember the last time you told me that,” he said, smiling a little.

  “I was right, wasn’t I?”

  “Do you know what we’ve just done?”

  “What?”

  “We’ve brought a Prince of the Mbo to council with one of the Cancrioth Lines.”

  “Should I be proud?” Aminata muttered.

  “Of course you should.”

  A shadow filled the washroom door.

  “Hello,” Shao Lune said, with bright and vicious charm. “Look at you, Lieutenant Commander! Filthy again! I understand you’ve been helping the Oriati do magic? I think some Incrastic guidance is needed here.”

  Aminata got in front of Iraji. “What do you want?”

  “We are in sight of Isla Cauteria. It’s time to leave with what we’ve learned. When the navy moves to take this vessel, they’ll need our reports.”

  “We can’t just leave,” Aminata protested. “Even if we made it to a boat, how would we get it down to the water without being sighted? And they have that whale—

  “No orca has ever been known to fatally attack a human being.”

  “Well,” Aminata sputtered, “maybe that’s because all the dead people don’t come back to report it!”

  “I refuse to let a whale keep me from my duty.” An arch frown. “You can still swim distance, can’t you?”

  “I can’t,” Iraji said, softly.

  “You are a fallen Oriati, reverted to your ancestry, and will not be joining us.” Shao Lune’s glare tugged Aminata toward attention: be better, be what I want you to be. “Report to my cabin by end of watch. That’s an order. We’re abandoning ship.”

  “Mam,” Aminata protested, “the situation aboard is very unstable. The peace faction might need our advice in communication with the navy—”

  “There is no ‘peace faction’ here. There are only varieties of abomination.” Shao Lune looked back coolly from the door. “Best not to linger aboard, Lieutenant Commander. This is a plague ship. I’ve already posted the coded signal in the rigging. Maroyad’s sentries will spot it any moment.”

  “A coded signal for what?” Aminata demanded. There were various ways you could tie knots in rigging, when signal flags weren’t available. “What did you send?”

  “Why, destroy on sight, of course.”

  And Shao was gone.

  As the rocket flare came at Barhu’s face, she had time to think: I really must have pushed Svir too far.

  T
he flare zipped past her, screamed between Haradel Heia’s antlers like a mezzo-soprano hornet, and struck the gray-eyed Stakhi armsman behind her in the face. He screamed, grabbed his burning beard, and dropped the knife he’d drawn to stab his lady Heingyl Ri in the back.

  The flare fell into a bowl of high-proof punch. The puff of blue fire ignited the paper flowers all around it. Screams of terror and exhilaration went up all over the ballroom.

  Ah. An assassination interrupted. Very good shot, Svir. I wonder if that man had any accomplices? I ought to check.

  Two more of Heia’s armsmen had their knives out.

  Closest to the Governor was the sad-eyed Stakhi man with the harelip. But it was the Maia giant in maille who roared “HONOR THE WORD!” And lunged for her, Stag Daughter of the Stag Duke he’d once served, married to a foreign man who the old Stag Duke had disapproved of. There were men all over the world prepared to kill women for what they did with their love. The Stag Governor’s household was apparently no exception.

  Of course her own house is going to try to kill her, Barhu thought. Women are mostly murdered by the men closest to them.

  The crowd, in perfectly Falcresti fashion, hushed to watch, like they were at the theater.

  “Pilyx!” the fourth armsman bellowed. “You fucking oathbreaker!” He got between Heingyl Ri and Pilyx the mailed Maia giant. Pilyx charged straight at the loyalist, knife low, a brutal prisonyard rush—Barhu remembered this from her Naval System training—and the loyal armsman tried, artfully, to parry the oncoming knife with his own. Pilyx taught him that knife fights were not the place for parries: three severed fingers as learning toll.

  The loyalist stared at his maimed hand.

  Pilyx put his knife hilt-deep into the loyalist’s belly. He shrieked, he dropped his blade, giant Pilyx grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him down three, four, six, ten times onto the knife—

  “Kill her!” he roared. “Szeti, kill her, go!”

  Barhu watched all this in absolute befuddlement. Her powers were useless. Wasn’t she supposed to have security for moments like this? Where was Iscend?

  Szeti, the sad-eyed man with the harelip, rushed to kill Heia. The Stag Governor fell on top of Barhu and as they both went down Iscend stepped across them, blocked the sad man’s knife arm with the meat of her own forearm, captured his hand, popped his wrist joint with the lever of her thumb. He dropped the blade. She grabbed his face with her other hand and drove her thumb under his left eyeball. The ball popped out in a mess of blood and nerves. Szeti shrieked in bad harmony with the man whose face was burning off.