The Tyrant

by Seth Dickinson

  When they reach War Plot, Empire Admiral Ahanna Croftare doesn’t salute. Baru is, after all, no one in particular, not a minister or a parliamin or even a luminary from the Faculties. Just a woman with an Imperial polestar mark. “Evening,” Croftare says, through coffee-speckled teeth. “When does Parliament give me back my money?”

  “I don’t have any leverage in Parliament yet,” Baru says. Cairdine Farrier is still processing his new position, and she hasn’t gained his network of influence. “You’ll have to give me a few months. Show me the ships.”

  Croftare beckons to Rear Admiral Arrior, who gestures to the tactical secretaries at the great map table, who wield their long pointers. By this chain of impulses exquisite models of balsa, carved oak, twine, and glass are positioned across the circle of the Ashen Sea. Baru closes her eyes and relishes the sounds. The brush of wood on blue felt. Exquisite craft.

  “This is what a newborn war looks like,” Croftare says, “when it’s about halfway out of mom, she’s been in labor for six hours, and you’re asking her to hold the little fucker in a while longer.”

  A ring of white ships flows from Falcrest, down across the northern coast of Lonjaro and Segu Mbo, up through Taranoke, along the desolate shore of the Camou Interval, above the Llosydanes and to Aurdwynn, past Isla Cauteria, and back to Falcrest again. That’s the trade circle, the Empire’s breath.

  But all along the northern and eastern coasts of the Mbo, dozens of green-gold Oriati models wait to enter open sea.

  “If the green ships go into the white ring,” Croftare says, “money stops moving, and it’s war.”

  “Each green model is an Oriati ship?”

  “Not ships. Fleets.”

  “Damn,” Baru says.

  “Oriati Fighting Swarm,” Arrior confirms. “Mostly dromon galleys, as they were in the Armada War. But they have salaried officers now, and some cannon, and the militia crews are required to drill twice a year. They haven’t the range to make it far on open ocean, of course, so they’re limited to coastal action. The real problem is the ships we may not know about.”

  Baru searches the board for a huge golden ship. But of course there is no marker for Eternal. “Cancrioth,” she says, filling in the word Arrior will not say. “Do you have any word on their activities since Cauteria?”

  “Some sightings of Eternal on its way south. We lost her when she passed into Segu waters.”

  “So you don’t know what’s happened,” Baru says, without smugness. It’s not fair to Croftare to undercut her like this. But Baru must demonstrate that her resources are indispensable.

  For example: the news she gets from Tau-indi Bosoka’s diplomatic packets, which arrive monthly from Jaro, recorded not in writing but in the minds of extremely articulate griots with eidesis training.

  “Don’t know what?” Croftare asks, bluntly. Arrior looks like he’s swallowed his mint in alarm.

  “Do you know the Ash Plate?”

  “In old Kutulbha. Where the tunks go on pilgrimage.” Thousands of Segu-people make the pilgrimage to the ruins of the old city, to remember ancestors and to show their children.

  “Something appeared there.”

  The Brain told her, in that hutch full of bats, exactly what she would do. You will see me at the head of mighty armies, and emblazoned upon ships, and clasped at the throat of the dead. I will be many places at once and I will not need one single coin or gem to do it.

  And she’s done it.

  “It was an effigy,” Baru tells narrow-eyed Ahanna Croftare. “A woman cast alive into the surface of a huge bronze disc. They peeled the metal away, in places, to show her bones. You can still see her expression, they say. There’s a hole in her head where they pulled the tumor from her brain. They filled it in with gold.”

  “An effigy.” It is Arrior’s job to express confusion when his Empire Admiral cannot. “Of who?”

  “The Brain. A Cancrioth leader. A messiah. She’s calling them to war.”

  Croftare rubs her brow. “How did the Oriati pilgrims react?” She does not say tunk this time.

  “There was a riot. Princes fought over what to do with the effigy. A vote was taken, and it was agreed to cast it in concrete and sink it in the deep ocean. But one of the Segu Princes stole it first; a Queen-Aunt from the yeniSegu tribe. She’s carrying it along the Segu coast in a procession, telling her people that the Old Power has returned to lead them to war. And there’s a sorcerer with her, people say. A sorcerer who says she’s the same soul in a new body.”

  “Civil war?” Arrior says, hopefully.

  “I don’t know,” Baru says, which is the truth. Tau-indi still hopes it can be avoided. “What about the Stakhieczi? How has their invasion progressed?”

  “Stalled out in the north, for now,” Censorate Admiral Brilinda Vain reports. “They’re spreading out into tribal groups and claiming little fiefdoms. I’ve heard reports of some infighting. They may turn on each other before they reach the coast.”

  “It’s a shame Juris Ormsment wasn’t at her post to react,” Baru says, blandly. “I’m sure she would’ve had marines striking at the Stakhieczi the moment they left the mountains.”

  Arrior looks like he’s just tasted borax. Croftare crosses her arms. “Juris Ormsment was a good admiral. She’ll be difficult to replace.”

  “She was a good officer and a good woman,” Baru agrees. “She had a developed sense of justice. It’s a shame she was born into our world, and not a better one. Which reminds me.” She turns her blind side to reveal Shao Lune. “I understand there’s a court-martial in the cards for Brevet-Captain Aminata.”

  Croftare shrugs dispassionately. “Any officer involved in the loss of a ship receives a court-martial. There are no exceptions. She was aboard Sulane when it was destroyed. She goes before the mast. And her rank is Lieutenant Commander, half-pay. Your Excellence.”

  “But there are,” she watches Shao Lune sideways, searching for any flinch of fear in those masked eyes, “allegations of mutiny and insubordination. I believe the staff captain here brought them?”

  Shao Lune matches her blandness for blandness. “When a navy officer refuses an order to depart a foreign warship, in order to remain aboard that warship and aid her racemates, then that decision must of course be carefully inspected.”

  Baru dismisses Shao Lune from her gaze. “Empire Admiral,” she tells Croftare, “you’re going to lose a very good officer when Aminata goes to court-martial.”

  “Only if she’s guilty.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Baru says, and lets a little of her fury on Aminata’s behalf slip into her smile. “I wouldn’t be certain that you still deserve her.”

  It’s Armada Day, the twenty-third anniversary of Oriati Mbo’s surrender. Baru looks down at her new home from a towertop alongside the ner ab Grand, the city’s widest canal.

  Behold Falcrest, City of Sails! Born in revolt, bred to rule, self-made center of the world, self-proclaimed end of history. A city like a vessel swift and outbound, with towers like swan necks stretched to sing, with mirror-cupped lanterns like revisionist constellations. Galleries and promenades step down to the canals in a layer cake of white marble and clean water. Canvas sunshades billow; red silk ribbons spill the blood of the aristocracy. Even the birds celebrate Falcrest’s victory. An enormous catch-and-release effort by the Ministry of Unhuman Citizens has fixed whistles to various city birds, to make a gleeful keening as they dive. Baru has heard rumors that the same Ministry is now dealing with an outburst of uncouth seagull behavior: the dockside gulls have been mobbing passersby, stamping their feet as if dancing, demanding food, shitting angrily on possessions and people if not indulged.

  A man settles by her side.

  “Cosgrad,” Baru says. Hesychast always smells of grape flowers lately; not because he’s drinking, but because the Experimental Vineyards above the Metademe cliffs are in full bloom. “How’s Abd? Still coming in for treatment?”

  “Doing well,
thank you. His paralysis is not relieved, but he’s coping.”

  “And Kimbune’s proof? Read it through yet?”

  “It’s far beyond my grasp. I’m planning a sortie to the Mathematical Exemplaries. What’s your name today?”

  “Wuxa Rin,” Baru says.

  “Kindalana stopped by the Metademe to visit Abdumasi. They’re together again, I think.”

  “Jealous?”

  “No. Why would I be?”

  This makes Baru smile inside. She has very strong suspicions about the lineage of Kindalana’s secret child, and about the mysterious final member of this cell of the Throne—the elusive Stargazer. Why would a cryptarch apparently preoccupied with science be included in what Baru thinks of as the foreign affairs cell?

  Only if Stargazer had foreign blood. . . .

  But Hesychast will read her thoughts from her face. She swerves. “Do you truly believe Abdumasi’s carrying the immortal souls of the Undionash line?”

  A thoughtful inhalation: the tidal volume of that huge chest sucking down air Baru might otherwise have breathed. Denial by mere presence. “I don’t know yet. He tells me he has to be educated about those souls in order to speak with them. But if that’s so, it seems to prevent any truly scientific test for flesh memory.”

  She studies his hands. He’s wearing surgical gloves, made of layers of fabric glued together by rubber-naphtha chemistry. Down below, navy sailors row a model frigate down the ner ab Grand. The Armada Day drums beat.

  “You’re comfortable up here?” Hesychast asks her. “We’re quite far above the streets.”

  “I have that Taranoki predisposition to heights, don’t I?”

  “Just as Xate Yawa has the Aurdwynni predisposition to rebellion.”

  Baru searches his jaw for signs of anger. “She did exactly as you required. She turned me against Farrier and helped me betray him. The fact that she lied about the method shouldn’t trouble you, Cosgrad. She’s a cryptarch. You didn’t choose her for her honesty.”

  “No, I didn’t.” He smiles ruefully. “But if I’d known you weren’t lobotomized, I would’ve stepped in to keep you from sitting on that Throne. I was happy to let Cairdine seize his little trade monopoly, because I knew I could control him. But you . . . now it’s your monopoly, isn’t it?”

  And an incredible monopoly it is. Black Tea Ocean Unlimited has not chartered a single ship, but already her first stock offering is trading higher than any other in Falcrest’s history. Wealth is being created out of nothing, without money printed or treasure unearthed or labor transacted or goods created, as the individual stock certificates become more and more desired—a stockholder will one day hold a share worth three hundred notes, and three hundred and fifty the next, simply because people are now willing to pay three hundred and fifty to gain it, all in the hope that soon others will be willing to pay four hundred.

  Some cautious investors are murmuring about bubbles. But it is only a bubble, others say, if nothing arrives to fill it. And the riches of unknown Oria await. . . .

  “You won’t punish her for it,” Baru says. “Yawa, I mean.”

  “That’s up to me, isn’t it?” He taps the knuckles of his right fist against the stone. “She’s under my leverage.”

  “And you’re under mine.” The drums are playing a Taranoki war beat now, something Falcrest stole; it might, once, have been played before Salm went into battle. The crowd is cheering.

  Hesychast doesn’t react to the threat. Instead he brandishes a weed cigarette. “Light me?”

  “I didn’t realize you smoked.”

  “Only when anxious.”

  “Am I making you anxious?”

  He tips his head back and forth. “The possibility exists.”

  “I don’t have a sparkfire.”

  “Try this. It’s called a friction match.” He gives her a slender stick, wrapped at one end in cloth. “There’s a woman in the Faculties who makes them for me. Take it, like so, and strike it on the stone—”

  When he seizes her wrist and tries to move her hand, she resists by reflex, and drops the match. Hesychast tsks. “Farrier’s trying to strike a bargain with Mandridge Subahant, you know. He’ll accept permanent exile and go to Lonjaro Mbo to arrange plantations and schools for rich men.”

  “He won’t get past Yawa.” She pickpockets him, not subtly, for another match, and strikes it on the stone. It flares up so swiftly she almost drops it. “Light?”

  “Thank you.” He sets the cigarette to the match, takes a drag, and exhales. She does not know what to do with the match so she looks left and stubs it out against her right palm. It hurts anyway.

  “So,” he says. “I’m under your leverage, you say. Is that because you control Farrier now? You can tell him to withhold his codes, so his vendettas trigger and—how did he put it, last time we met—his agents ‘open my bottled failures in front of Parliament’? You think that’ll hurt me enough to stop me? When I have Renascent’s favor?”

  She is not convinced he has actually received that favor at all. “I am an unbound cryptarch.” She lifts her face to the warm wind. “I could do that. But I have a better handle on you, don’t I, Hesychast?”

  He does something, some trick of stance or presence, which makes her suddenly aware of how easily he could lift her and pitch her over the edge. “What handle?”

  “On Taranoke”—she savors speaking that word openly, right to his face, rather than Falcrest’s Sousward—“I had two fathers. Solit and Salm. My family exiled me, I’m sure you’ve heard, so now I’ll never learn, even if I wanted to, which of those men was my, ah . . .”

  “Biological father?”

  “Just so.” She does not actually care, but he does, and that’s the key. “I don’t think Solit or Salm knew either, you know. I think my dear old mother had them both the night I was conceived, so maybe she didn’t even know. Which brings me to your problem—”

  Hesychast blows smoke in her face. Reflex makes her cough and blink, and as she does he steps into her space, almost shoving her.

  “Listen,” he mutters. “I remember my early days. I was drunk on hubris then, too. You played a strong game in Aurdwynn, but you played against inbred feudal idiots. You showed new talents against Farrier, making yourself seem helpless while your agents positioned the trap. But don’t think for an instant you could’ve won if I hadn’t allowed it.”

  She holds her ground. “Allowed it? I don’t think you could’ve disallowed it. It wasn’t just Yawa who deceived you, was it? It was Iscend.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “I don’t think you know why she chose me over you.” She grins smugly. “But I do. Isn’t that a puzzle, Cosgrad? I know where all your conditioning and all your eugenics went wrong. She gave me the flaw in your precious Torrindic heredity. And when I disprove it, as I will, Incrasticism’s going to come toppling down. And then you’ll need to justify to yourself all the hideous things you’ve done in the name of a lie.”

  He touches her with one gloved finger, right on the breastbone, as if listening to some interior hum. “You didn’t finish your threat.”

  “I don’t think I need to, do I? A child with two fathers. Isn’t that enough?”

  If Baru were Kindalana of Segu, if she had made the decision to use herself as a playing piece, if she had carefully manufactured herself as “the Amity Prince,” the very picture of the agreeable, palatable Oriati woman—but still, of course, so forbidden, so royal, so exotic—she would have gone to great lengths to maximize the yield of her maneuver.

  If one powerful Falcresti man could be convinced to father a forbidden child, breaking his own heart, setting him on a lifelong quest for a surrogate daughter he could raise in that child’s place, well, very good.

  But why not two? Why not confuse the child’s paternity? Why not inflame the existing rivalry between two men by inflicting on them the nauseous force of sexual jealousy, backed by all of Falcrest’s eugenic ideology? Why not create a weapon that could u
ndo them both, if needed?

  Prince Kindalana has skills Baru will never possess. Baru could absolutely never play to the beaming and sexually available hostess of Souswardi stereotype. But Kindalana discovered exactly what Falcrest thought of women like her and, patiently, particularly, played that role to the not-so-metaphorical hilt.

  And it worked. When it mattered most, when the fate of Kindalana’s home was in the balance, she had a weapon ready to strike at Farrier, shove him aside, and seize the power he controlled.

  By capturing Farrier, Kindalana has positioned Baru to inherit his power.

  Now she will want to capture Baru. If Baru is lucky (oh lecherous heart) she’ll use the same tactics. But perhaps that is just anti-Oriati prejudice speaking. Perhaps Baru is as guilty of fantasies of the bejeweled princess as Farrier ever was.

  What was it like, growing up as Kindalana’s daughter? Where is that woman now?

  “Aminata told me,” she says, softly, “about how she fucked you. In that alley behind the restaurant on the Llosydanes. How you reacted when she said, pretend I’m Kinda—”

  “Stop,” Hesychast snaps. Baru actually flinches: certain for a moment that he is going to strike her. But he just shakes out his shoulders and sighs.

  “How?” he asks, with actual raw hurt. “How did you make Kindalana trust you?”

  “Trim,” Baru says, which is the truth.

  “Trim is a belief system. It’s not real.”

  “If it made her choose me, isn’t it real?”

  “Kindalana is a subtle, far-sighted politician. She wouldn’t make such a huge decision on the basis of superstition.”

  Poor Cosgrad Torrinde. He has loved this woman Kindalana for decades, in one way or another: maybe not sexual or romantic love, but some kind of love, some absolute appreciation for Kindalana’s existence. They were not so far apart in age when they met. They came of age together, in that war.

  And yet he doesn’t understand her at all.

  “Maybe I fucked her,” Baru suggests, quite seriously. “Isn’t it supposed to be better with another woman? Addictive? Isn’t that your explanation for why we tribadists persist?”