by Yoon Ha Lee
On the other hand, Kujen would keep trying until he got it right. A 900-year-old ghost would have great stores of patience.
How many times had Jedao himself been wiped clean for Kujen’s benefit? Had he undergone this cycle of discovery and rebellion before? It didn’t matter. He was still obliged to assassinate Kujen.
What do you know about this? he asked the Revenant.
Know about what? it said. There was a distinct chill in its voice. At least it was talking to him.
Either it couldn’t read his mind or it was faking. Jedao explained the situation while Dhanneth watched him with haunted eyes.
There were others before you, the Revenant said. They didn’t last long. Flawed. He would have continued his experiments for years yet, except he grew concerned about the rift between the successor states.
Jedao hesitated, then: Are there more?
The Revenant said slowly, None that are awake. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more, though.
Jedao bit the inside of his mouth at the hot surge of jealousy that went through him. It was followed by a wave of shame. What had Kujen done with the failures? But he could guess the answer to that question.
“Sir?” Dhanneth said, worried.
Jedao had an idea. Not a good one. But he was out of those anyway. “Give me your hand, Commander.”
Jedao’s heart contracted painfully at the way Dhanneth complied without hesitation. I should not be doing this.
Talaw hated him, and the staffers weren’t much better. Dhanneth, at least, showed no disgust around him—quite the opposite. As two people much disliked by the other Kel, they had something in common. Jedao didn’t know whether Dhanneth would prioritize obedience to a Nirai hexarch or a Shuos general. It wasn’t much of a chance, but he’d take it.
Jedao leaned in, heart beating rapidly at the sudden proximity to another man. If only—but no. Dhanneth was a Kel, and his subordinate. Even if Dhanneth were interested in him, it was forbidden. And Jedao was painfully aware that no one would ever want him, not that way. Even Ruo hadn’t wanted him, not that he remembered.
I just need to convey my message. That’s all.
He wasn’t doing a good job of convincing his traitor heart. For the first time, Jedao was aware of being lonely.
He drew a deep breath and pressed a kiss to Dhanneth’s palm, using the motion to cover what he was really (really?) doing: tapping a message in the Kel drum code against Dhanneth’s hand.
I need your help.
Dhanneth’s next move took Jedao off-guard. Dhanneth rose and came around so he stood next to Jedao’s seat. He went to his knees and kissed Jedao’s bare fingers. “Tell me how I may serve you,” he said.
The shock of contact dizzied Jedao. He sat, trapped, desperate to respond and more desperate to restrain himself. I’m imagining this.
When Jedao didn’t move, Dhanneth grew bolder. He ungloved slowly, almost teasingly. His face was very grave. He held out both gloves to Jedao, that old Kel gesture: My honor is yours.
Jedao accepted the gloves, as much as it pained him. Doing otherwise would have insulted Dhanneth, and he needed Dhanneth’s help.
“You can’t hurt me, sir,” Dhanneth said.
Jedao left the chair and knelt so he faced Dhanneth. Rested his hands atop Dhanneth’s broad shoulders, taking reluctant pleasure in the solidity of bunched muscle. A horrible thought occurred to him, although perhaps no more horrible than what was going on right now: “Have we done this before?”
Dhanneth was tranquil. “No, sir.”
Jedao kissed him at the corner of his mouth so their noses wouldn’t collide. The salt of skin aroused him. Kissing wasn’t anything like he’d imagined. (Ruo. Had they ever—? But he didn’t remember Ruo showing any interest.) He wished so much for this to be real intimacy, the one thing it could never be. “What about this?”
In the drum code, he asked, What did the hexarch do to you? Who were you?
Dhanneth stirred, then rose, drawing Jedao with him. He lifted one hand and cupped Jedao’s cheek. I defied him and he broke me. Drum code.
Jedao embraced him, inhaled the scent of Dhanneth’s skin. Hated himself for seeking comfort in this, of all things. Asked the question he should have asked at the beginning, although who knew if he’d get an honest answer. If I ordered you to kill the hexarch, what would happen?
If Dhanneth reported him straightaway to Kujen, it would be no more than what he deserved.
Dhanneth clasped Jedao’s fingers with his other hand. “I am yours,” he said. “I have been yours since you came to us.” In drum code: I can give you what you really want.
Dhanneth’s vehemence unnerved Jedao. “I don’t know what you mean by that.” He didn’t know which part he was responding to.
“I was present when the hexarch created you,” Dhanneth said.
Jedao stared at him.
“He didn’t explain the mechanics to me,” Dhanneth said, “except he felt it would”—slight pause—“reassure you to have a Kel present. He explained to me that your original body no longer survived, so he made you a new one.”
“So I’m a clone after all?” Jedao said, unsurprised that Kujen had lied after all. It wasn’t news that he had to be some kind of construct.
“No, sir.” Dhanneth was subdued. “He explained to me that voidmoths do not age—that they would live forever if not for the normal attrition of battle and madness. That they have impressive regenerative capabilities. He felt these were desirable traits.”
“But I’m not—” Jedao’s voice died in his throat.
He could hear moths. He could hear the Revenant, and talk to it. The othersense must be a moth-sense. And presumably his inability to die like a regular human being was related, too. Because he wasn’t human.
He was a moth, and he’d ordered the massacre of moths at Isteia.
Revenant, Jedao said, why didn’t you tell me?
Tell you what?
That I’m not human. That I’m one of you.
The Revenant was scornful. Would you have believed me?
“Yes,” Dhanneth said. “You’re a moth modded into human shape. The hexarch said it was one of his greatest achievements.”
“Who were you,” Jedao said, “that he picked you to keep this secret, and not someone else?”
Dhanneth shivered, although Jedao hadn’t intended it as a criticism. “I was the lieutenant general in charge of this swarm.”
“What?” Jedao whispered, stumbling backward. He would have fallen on his ass if Dhanneth hadn’t caught him.
“Are you all right, sir?”
“Am I all ri—” Jedao checked himself. Just because he was rattled didn’t give him the right to tear into Dhanneth. “He broke you to major?”
Dhanneth lowered his eyes. “I was more useful to him this way.”
Suddenly it made sense. Dhanneth still had the expertise of a general. It was what enabled him to give such excellent commentary on strategy and battle planning. It also made him an ideal aide for an amnesiac general. On the other hand, he no longer possessed the personality to lead or inspire.
No wonder the Kel soldiers were so uncomfortable in Dhanneth’s presence. He was a living reminder of the hexarch’s power. For if Kujen could do this to their general, he could do it to any of them.
Jedao felt wretched for using Dhanneth against Kujen. How did that make him any better than Kujen himself? At the same time, Dhanneth might have observed something that might help Jedao. Drum code again: Is there any way to kill the hexarch?
No, Dhanneth replied. His eyes were questioning.
Jedao reached out toward Dhanneth, then dropped his hand. “Leave me,” Jedao said abruptly, ashamed of himself for wanting to touch Dhanneth again. He’s already been harmed enough. The least I can do is leave him alone.
“Sir—” Dhanneth scooped up Jedao’s hand, pressed a kiss to his palm, then retrieved his gloves, put them on, and left. Jedao was left watching the closing door, heart poundi
ng, troubled in more ways than he cared to name.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I’M NOT HUMAN, Jedao thought. It didn’t seem real. On the other hand, he couldn’t deny the evidence.
After he’d spoken with Dhanneth, he’d returned to his quarters to take a bath. At first the water was too hot. The temperature reminded him of blood. He pulled the plug and watched the water drain away. Then he set the temperature to be unpleasantly chilly and filled the tub again. The cold stabbed him. He welcomed the pain.
When he no longer felt the cold, Jedao left the bathtub and stood, dripping, in front of the mirror. Kujen must have selected it personally. It took up the better part of the wall, and the frame resembled a cascade of black moths with glittering stars caught in their wings. Jedao had grown inured to luxury, thanks to its omnipresence. Now he was struck by the sheer wasteful beauty of the mirror and, for the first time, by his own essential ugliness.
I’m not human.
Dhanneth had known all this time. Had kept the secret.
Jedao toweled himself off and got dressed. In a way, finding out this latest unwelcome truth came as a relief. Kujen had created him as a pawn. No one had any reason to mourn him when he died. He was looking forward to it. All he needed to do was endure until he found a way to destroy Kujen.
At some point servitors brought him food. He had a vague memory of acknowledging their presence. The thought of eating exhausted him. He didn’t see the point. Instead, he spent nearly an hour pushing food around the plates before concluding that he wasn’t going to choke any of it down.
It was Kujen, of all people, who rescued him from diving into paperwork for lack of anything better to do. The grid alerted Jedao of a message. Come to my quarters, it said. We should talk.
Jedao messaged that he was coming. Finding his way to Kujen’s quarters wasn’t difficult. The rooms had changed, or perhaps rearranged themselves.
This time he passed one full of seven eyeless statues, flawlessly rendered in costume that looked flowingly impractical. If he knew Kujen, the statues had been chiseled by master sculptors, the rock quarried from mountains where the very birds sang their stories into the stone. Jedao didn’t know who any of the statues represented, if anyone at all. Presumably all of them had been human.
In the next room, ropes of beads hung from the ceiling, alternating with curtains of diaphanous fabric, as if someone had dismembered dragonflies and stitched up their wings. The effect, for all its loveliness, made him feel trapped.
When he found Kujen at last, it was in a garden. Jedao stopped at the archway leading into it, inhaling the smells of plants and earth and decaying leaves. A breeze swirled out and scattered red and yellow leaves. He stooped to pick one up: dry, paper-fine, crisp and curling at the edges.
“Come in,” Kujen said. He was leaning against a tree with narrow, silvery green leaves and smooth bark. The first thing Jedao noticed was not his clothes—robes of fine dark silk brightened with silver embroidery—but the fact that he was standing with bare feet in the dirt. His slippers had been discarded next to an exposed tree root.
Jedao blinked at Kujen, discomfited. Then he stepped into the garden and joined Kujen under the tree. For all his dislike of Kujen, something about the bare feet made Kujen seem human. Illusory as that might be.
“There’s something you should know about your aide,” Kujen said. “I’m glad his programming has held so far.”
“Oh?” Jedao said neutrally.
Kujen pulled a slate out from his robes and called up a still. It showed Kujen in restrained attire, and Dhanneth in full formal. At Dhanneth’s breast was a golden feather pierced with three rings: a lieutenant general’s insignia. The two of them stood before an angled casket in a brightly lit lab. Jedao could guess the casket’s contents, despite the murkiness of the fluid that swirled within. Several guards in Nirai black-and-silver stood to the side, expressionless.
The still had captured Dhanneth with his brows drawn down, mouth slightly open. He was about to argue. In fact, Jedao couldn’t remember ever having seen Dhanneth so combative. But of course, he knew the reason for that.
“Go ahead,” Jedao said, “play it. That’s what you called me here for.”
“Just remember I’m doing this for your safety,” Kujen said, and triggered playback.
Jedao had thought he was prepared for the casket’s contents. The thing within, naked, bore a superficial resemblance to a man if he ignored the way it was composed of tendrils coiled together. Worst of all was the tendrils’ slow knotting and unknotting, as though they sought to crawl free of their shape.
“Hexarch,” Dhanneth-in-the-video said with murderous intensity. “I am not interested in your hobbies.”
Kujen-in-the-video pressed controls on the casket. Tubes drained the fluid, and the lid receded. For all the pallid inhumanity of the tendrils, the thing had a wholly human visage, blankly dreaming, the brown eyes innocent of expression. Jedao stared at his face in the video with its unkempt bangs, and thought inanely, You couldn’t give it a haircut?
Dhanneth’s laugh came short and harsh. “I recognize Shuos Jedao, all right. If you think I’m going to serve some experimental puppet with his face, you’re out of your mind.”
“It’s not just a puppet,” Kujen said, maddeningly calm. “It has Jedao’s capabilities. But he’ll still need an army. At the moment, unless I misread the personnel roster, you’re the swarm’s general.”
“What are you going to do,” Dhanneth said, “slaughter your way down the chain of command if I say no? I’m not going to accommodate you.”
“Kel courage is so inconvenient sometimes,” Kujen said with the nonchalance that Jedao had learned to dread. “You may care little for your own fate, General, but what of your subordinates’?”
“I care about their fates, all right,” Dhanneth said. “They deserve better leadership. Something you’ll never understand.”
In a motion so swift Jedao almost missed it, Dhanneth drew his knife and began stabbing the wretched writhing thing. Dhanneth knew about the business of killing. He did not stop with a single thrust, however wholehearted, or pause after driving the knife home. Instead, he slashed and stabbed over and over, in as many vulnerable places as he could reach. The thing was soon reduced to a mess of cringing severed tendrils and puddled silver-black fluid. But the eyes in the face woke long enough to stare up at Dhanneth in what Jedao recognized, heartsick, as terror.
Kujen paused the recording. “Jedao,” he said, “that was the point at which I decided he needed psych surgery. Because once he fell in line, the rest would follow.”
“No,” Jedao said. “Play the rest.”
“It will hurt you.”
“Do you care?”
“I need you intact, my dear.” Kujen smiled reflectively at him. “In my nine centuries, I have met no one with quite your combination of aptitudes. When I was a boy, I thought my master the warlord was the most ferocious warrior I would ever know. The Kel did away with him handily enough. But you may be the greatest general the Kel have ever known.
“You’re troubled by what you’ve learned? What does it matter what color your blood is, or what you look like beneath your skin? You’re still a person. Don’t get distracted by superficialities.”
“Just play it,” Jedao said, dropping all honorifics.
Kujen’s eyes lit as if he’d won. “If you insist.”
The hexarch’s security, who’d been standing to the side, finally intervened and pulled Dhanneth off the thing in the casket. Kujen watched with an impressive show of unconcern. Two of the guards went down. Jedao wondered if they had survived. They had to call in reinforcements. Three of those went down as well.
Pinned, guns pointed at him, Dhanneth only grinned at Kujen. “Even if it lives, I doubt that creature is any more enthusiastic about serving you than I am.” Jedao shuddered at the note of desperation in Dhanneth’s voice. “Or being surrounded by people who look at it and see nothing but a monster.�
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Jedao covered a wince.
“It’ll look more human after I’ve had more time to complete the treatments,” Kujen said. “I would have liked to continue the experiment at a more leisurely pace. Unfortunately, events have forced my hand.”
Kujen stopped the video again. “Is that enough? Shall I keep going? Because psych surgery is boring to watch. It’s all chemicals and signifiers and furniture-arranging.”
Jedao shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.
“Come here,” Kujen said, opening the circle of his arms. “You’re shaking.” He smelled of distant apples and smoke and spices.
Jedao let Kujen enfold him. What does it matter? he thought. I can’t figure out how to kill you, and you’re the only one who doesn’t hate me. Except Dhanneth, who didn’t have a choice in the matter.
After a while, Jedao said, “Kujen, the warlord.”
By then Kujen was massaging his shoulders. “What about him?”
“You must have cared about him a great deal.” He remembered the hint of admiration in Kujen’s voice. It was hard to imagine Kujen caring about anyone but himself.
The corners of Kujen’s mouth lifted. “He won my loyalty with a refrigerator, you know.”
Jedao was nonplussed.
“It was a very long time ago,” Kujen said. “Halash had me brought before him after I danced for him for the first time. I’d never seen so much food in one place in all my life. I’m surprised I didn’t attack the table.”
Jedao couldn’t imagine Kujen with his manicured nails and flawless skin and velvets attacking anything; wondered what he had looked like as a dancer.
Kujen gazed into a past that only he could see. “It wasn’t a good refrigerator, a Snowbird 823, but I had no way of telling at the time. When he saw me trying to figure out how much food I could stuff into my clothes, or my stomach for that matter, he took me to my room. A whole room, all to myself. He showed me a table set with food, and the refrigerator in the corner. He explained to me that I didn’t have to eat everything in one sitting. The refrigerator was prone to breaking down, so I set myself to learning how to fix it. Good training for the Nirai, I suppose.”