by Yoon Ha Lee
“They’re being cared for.” She wouldn’t say more on the subject. Perhaps that was all she knew.
You’re free of me too, Jedao thought at Talaw, absent Talaw.
Cheris hadn’t finished with him. “It’s also curious that your command moth went rogue. Do you have an explanation?”
Jedao didn’t dare tell her about the Revenant. Not when she was accompanied by servitors of unknown allegiance. He had a story prepared. “The crew revolted.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Surely not, if they’re Kel.”
Jedao smiled at her for the first time. Thought of Dhanneth’s hand rising, the muzzle-flash of the gun. No one will ever love you again, Kujen had said. “I raped their commander. He shot himself.”
Although Jedao knew what a terrible thing he had done, he was unprepared for the force of her contempt. “Hawkfucker,” she snapped. “I suppose you don’t remember anything Khiaz did, either? That you were once one of her victims?” He drew back. She said something he couldn’t follow. The barrier blinked out. She drew a gun and emptied the clip into his head.
The world went black and red. He left it behind gladly.
HE DID NOT die, of course.
He would not have allowed himself to surface even to the realm of dreams if he had understood that he was not dead. The bullets had come so suddenly, had been so fitting, that he hadn’t fought it. The sentence was kinder than he deserved. He had hoped it would be followed by more permanent measures.
The people who came after Cheris were gentler. They spoke in soft, worried voices. He dreamt once that they had opened him up and were piecing his skull back together, but it was knitting itself back into shape faster than they could work.
Cheris came in once after the surgery. He saw her as if she stood a great distance above him. That, too, seemed appropriate.
“Court-martial,” Jedao said, or thought he said. “Fire.” Then, because her expression kept not changing, and he dared not hope for mercy, “Turn me over to the Vidona.” The worst thing, being cast out as a heretic.
Inhyeng had given him an inkling that he would find dying difficult. The Vidona already possessed expertise in keeping people alive. That combination, plus his history, meant he would be in a great deal of pain for a long period of time.
“You’re very lucky,” Cheris said, still with that coldness upon her. He had the impression that she didn’t think he understood much of what she was saying, which was true. For that matter, he was positive that she didn’t think he was lucky, either. “You are going out of my care. I have no more claim on you, and there’s a jurisdiction squabble that I don’t plan on getting involved in.”
He didn’t know what that meant. He kept silent, too afraid to ask her. Had he failed to kill Kujen after all? What would Kujen do to him next?
Her face didn’t soften, but she took this much pity on him. “Among the people involved, Hexarch Shuos Mikodez has claimed you. He wants you alive. That’s not true of some of the others. Either way, I expect we shall never see each other again. If we do, I advise you that I will have been researching ways to make sure you stay dead.”
Jedao shuddered. “I will count on it.”
“One thing more. On Commander Talaw’s behalf, because they have endured a great deal, and I could not deny their request.”
Cheris came forward then. She pressed a small wooden box into his hand. He stared at it: Talaw’s deck of jeng-zai cards.
After she had left, Jedao began to cry.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
HEXARCH SHUOS MIKODEZ was pacing in his favorite office. To one side were neatly stacked trays containing everything from fancy yarns to fishing lures to decorative paper. To another was a potted silver orchid. One of the flowers was blemished, but for a silver orchid that wasn’t unusual. His desk took up a great chunk of corner. He’d once had a potted green onion on it, but it reminded him too much of the brother he’d lost nine years ago, and he’d found a better use for it. Above the desk glowed an image of strange violet pillars on a world he had never visited, as well as the usual displays informing him of everything from shadowmoth deployments to morale assessments to his next appointment with the Propaganda head.
His assistant, Shuos Zehun, occupied one of the office’s two other chairs. Zehun had brought their newest kitten, Jedao, with them, possibly to spite him. Jedao-the-kitten was busy chasing a cat toy decorated with a bright feather, and kept thudding into walls and corners in her enthusiasm.
Mikodez’s fingers flickered over his terminal, paused; flickered again. An image of their problem blazed up before them.
Jedao-not-the-kitten was under spider restraints. No one had wanted to take any chances after taking him into custody from Inesser. He sat in a chair under guard by four Shuos, with more monitoring him from outside the room. Mikodez had ordered that Jedao be provided a basic Shuos uniform as a courtesy. The uniform’s red and gold, ordinarily so unremarkable in the Citadel of Eyes, transformed Jedao almost to the point of being unrecognizable. Beyond the unsettling sight of Jedao with naked hands, he was much too thin.
Jedao himself sat passively, unresisting. He had made no attempt to escape. Mikodez hadn’t been so careless as to allow him to enter the Citadel conscious. Jedao had been under sedation-lock. The guards had taken him directly to Medical for processing and an additional examination, especially after the stunt Cheris had pulled, before releasing him to the interrogators.
Mikodez and Zehun had reviewed the interrogation videos, both Cheris’s and their own, separately. He had thought hard about the selection of the interrogators. They had needed what he called “extra special top clearance with extra cookies,” which included agreeing to potential mindwipe. Mikodez used mindwipe as a last resort with the Citadel’s permanent staff, but there was nothing usual about ensuring their safety from a Jedao, any Jedao.
People who didn’t know Mikodez were surprised by his anti-torture policy or flat-out refused to believe in it. The Shuos had enough of an image problem without further alienating the populace. (Assassinating the other hexarchs hadn’t improved matters on that front, as Propaganda liked to remind him.) Besides, if all you wanted was to get people to babble whatever came to mind in a desperate attempt to avoid pain, you were a terrible strategist.
Jedao’s interrogators worked in teams, monitoring each other. Holding Jedao prisoner required diverting all these people, some of the best in their fields, from their ordinary assignments. But Mikodez had known this would be the case when he took charge of Jedao.
The first thing the interrogators did was introduce themselves and explain the rules of the interrogation. They offered tea and crackers. Jedao refused both. He had been refusing everything but water.
They asked him for his name. He answered readily, in a slow, colorless voice. They asked him to recount everything he remembered from the beginning. His account had gaps. He faltered every time Nirai Kujen came up, came to a dead stop at every mention of one Kel Dhanneth. The interrogators noted the gaps, let him finish, started going over the whole thing from the beginning again. Jedao became visibly rattled, but his story didn’t change.
Mikodez paid as much attention to Jedao’s body language and expressions as to the things he was saying in that emotionless, dried-out voice. Fox and hound, Mikodez thought, he’s trying to be brave. Meaning Jedao was afraid, and Mikodez had leverage after all.
Zehun’s kitten had flopped over next to a bin of knitting needles and was batting at a mote of dust. When it became clear that Mikodez would not speak first, Zehun said, “Make up your mind before Jedao deteriorates further. Because your best options are mutually exclusive.”
“Go on,” Mikodez said. “You must already have an opinion.”
“If your mind is already made up, I don’t see why I’m here.”
“Well, aren’t we in a mood.”
“I’m entitled to be old and crotchety,” Zehun retorted. “As you keep reminding me, I have great-grandchildren.” Zehun eyed the knitt
ing needles.
Mikodez tapped his fingers on the side of his desk, then stopped. It was a bad time to annoy his most trusted adviser, not that there was ever a good time for that. “I’m serious. I need your evaluation.”
“Is it going to do you any good?”
“You normally don’t ask that.”
“Name one thing about this creation of Kujen’s that’s ‘normal,’” Zehun said. They brushed their hair out of their eyes, or would have if it had been out of place to begin with, a rare nervous tic. “Did you see the anomalous cognitive batteries? Unlike the other one, he has no dyscalculia, or if he does, it’s better hidden. In fact, all the mathematical scores have shot up through the roof. What the hell experiments was Kujen running?”
“Jedao didn’t mention anything of the sort. And it’s not like we’re going to let him run around conducting calendrical warfare. I doubt lack of dyscalculia lets him do anything the original wasn’t already doing with the aid of computer algebra systems and pet Doctrine officers.”
Zehun shook their head. “What concerns me more is he retains the original’s ability to make everyone’s judgment go to hell. Witness the way he played Cheris, who should have known better.”
“We should consider him a real Shuos just on that qualification alone.”
Zehun shot him an irritated look. “Don’t be glib.”
“What is it you think I’m going to do that has you so upset, anyway?”
Zehun’s frown answered him. “You’re going to make him live.”
Mikodez turned his most insincere smile on Zehun. He could do sarcasm as well as anyone else. “He surrendered to Inesser. I doubt anyone can make him do anything.”
“Mikodez,” Zehun said, “please take me seriously.”
“It’s not like you to circle the point like a lost vulture.”
“Nag, nag, nag,” Zehun said, but their heart wasn’t in it. “He reminds me of your nephew. Which, fair enough, it’s not like we don’t process our share of broken children in the course of any given crisis. No, the real issue is that he’s suicidal. If he hasn’t inherited the original Jedao’s modus of gaming other people into executing him, I’ll eat my cats. Or have you forgotten what he got Cheris to do? If he’s made to live, he will be your enemy forever.”
“I’m hurt that you think I can’t handle him.”
Zehun rolled their eyes.
“No, really.”
“Need I remind you how Cheris led you around by the nose ten years ago?”
“That was Cheris.”
“Being Jedao. You’re just making my point for me.” Zehun sighed. “He’s not the man who betrayed his government so comprehensively that they’ll remember him when everything else is ashes. But he claims he destroyed Nirai fucking Kujen. He’s too dangerous to keep around as an emergency backup weapon. Fucking euthanize him already.”
“You’re not giving the boy enough credit,” Mikodez said. Zehun’s eyes narrowed. “I can’t rehabilitate Jedao. On that point you are correct. But if I give him the opportunity, he’ll do the job himself.”
This Jedao was crazy in the same way the original had been, with one important difference. The original had been obsessed with fixing the hexarchate. This one was obsessed with fixing himself, even if he was convinced he had already failed.
Zehun glowered. “You’re going to insist on keeping him here?”
Mikodez shrugged. “What, because there’s some other site with security as good as the Citadel’s? Besides, if he gets anything past us here, we deserve it.”
“That’s atrocious logic.”
“It was a—”
“—very bad joke. Which is what makes it so unfunny.”
Mikodez leaned back and rested an elbow on his desk. “You’re going to find this even more unfunny,” he said. This time he didn’t smile at all. “I’m going to interview him in person. He needs a gesture of trust. He’ll get it.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind,” Zehun said. “Do you want to be assassinated too?”
“Let me put it to you this way,” Mikodez said. “Four centuries of torture and imprisonment and slavery didn’t help the original Jedao’s condition. Whatever this one is lying to us about, it didn’t help him either.” He could imagine what Kujen had put his pet general through. “It’s stupid to keep doing what doesn’t work. Maybe kindness will.”
Zehun considered that. “Our profession is about calculated risks anyway. Inesser is laughing her ass off at us, you know. Make all the Kel jokes you like, she would have rammed through the world’s fastest court-martial and decapitated him already.”
“You mean she wouldn’t risk a second Hellspin even if he had the opportunity and chose not to,” Mikodez said. He gave Zehun a hard, bright smile. “I haven’t forgotten that Jedao in any incarnation is a traitor. I’m going to give him a chance to finish the job.”
MIKODEZ WASN’T SO foolhardy as to bring Jedao into any of his offices. The Citadel’s system of clearances was a nuisance he had grown accustomed to long ago. Zehun had rationalized parts of it after his accession. Even so, the creeping intersection between regulations, tradition, and expedience meant that Zehun was probably the only person who fully understood the system.
Nor was Mikodez interested in talking to Jedao in an interrogation chamber, even one as superficially pleasant as the one he’d been held in for the last few weeks. So Mikodez set himself up in one of the conference rooms and had it decorated with an ink painting on lustrous silk, bright colors depicting a fox and her kits. (He didn’t feel the need to get creative with the decor.)
An indicator lit up. A message informed him that his visitor was ready. “Bring him in,” Mikodez said.
The doors opened. Four guards escorted Jedao in. The telltale flicker-shimmer of the restraints caught Mikodez’s eye. “Jedao,” Mikodez said. “Please have a seat.” To the guards: “Leave him.”
“Hexarch,” the senior guard said in that resigned Why do I work for a suicidal man? tone that many of Mikodez’s subordinates developed. She left the protest there.
Mikodez cleared his throat. The guards went, although he heard a distinct sigh.
Jedao placed his hands on the table where their nakedness could not be mistaken. “Shuos-zho,” he said. “Forgive me. After being raised in improper service, I don’t know what the correct forms are.”
“Considering all the things I could charge you with, Jedao,” Mikodez said mildly, “you’re concerned about a rather minor point of etiquette.” Just how much of the jurisdiction squabble had he heard of?
“In my position, Shuos-zho,” Jedao said, “I am concerned with whatever you want me to be.” Throughout he spoke with a formality level that the Shuos considered archaic, including the -zho honorific, although the Rahal and Andan sometimes still used such speech.
“I’m curious,” Mikodez said. “What do you think I require of you?”
“My service is owed to you. It was all along.” Jedao was still trying to be brave. “I expect you will execute me, or torture me until I die.”
He looked at Mikodez then, and his eyes were made of fracture and shadow. “I have only one request,” he said, “although I understand that I am owed nothing. My original surrender was to Protector-General Inesser. I don’t know how this arrangement affects the Kel. The soldiers who were under my care... are they all right? Will they be safe?”
Cheris had reassured him on this point, but considering that she had also shot him in the head (again), Jedao might be forgiven for wanting some extra confirmation. Mikodez said, frankly enough, “Kel Inesser makes my teeth ache and I have it on good authority that the feeling is mutual. But the hawks adore her for a reason. She is known to be honorable and she takes good care of her people. She will treat yours well.”
“They were never mine to begin with,” Jedao said.
I wonder how many of them would dispute that. For someone with a distressing habit of backstabbing people, Jedao had a remarkable ability to win others
’ loyalty under adverse conditions. In particular, Mikodez had his doubts about the renegade command moth. Cheris might have had a knee-jerk reaction to the story Jedao had fed her, but something about it sounded too facile. He’d pry the truth out of Jedao later.
Jedao bowed his head. He hadn’t touched any of the food. Mikodez made a note to himself to talk to Medical about ways to deal with the possibility that Jedao intended to starve himself to death.
“I don’t have any intention of killing you if I don’t have to,” Mikodez said. Was Jedao going to react to that as he predicted?
Yes: Jedao paled. Then he recovered himself. “I will endure whatever you do to me.”
Given most people’s preconceptions about Shuos hexarchs, it wasn’t fair to hold Jedao’s limited imagination against him. “Jedao,” Mikodez said, “assassinating hexarchs isn’t a capital crime around here. I’ve done it myself.”
“Assassinations,” Jedao said. “Of people I’ve never met. You killed them. Nirai-zho told me. It’s very hard to care about people I don’t know anything about.”
“Jedao—”
“I’m not a soldier,” he said, as if the battle at Terebeg hadn’t happened. “I dressed up in a uniform I have no claim to. I’m ready for the penalty.”
Mikodez knew better than to reach across the table to pat Jedao’s hand, even if he was reminded of how his nephew Niath had looked when he first came to the Citadel of Eyes after the incident that had ruined him. Instead, Mikodez said, relentless, “Kel Inesser might care about that, but if I’d meant you to be court-martialed, I’d have left you in her hands. You did us a favor killing Kujen.”
Jedao stiffened.
Mikodez had expected that. “I miss him too. We may be the only people who feel that way, however. And it’s still true that he had to die.”
“I know,” Jedao said, but he hunched his shoulders.
“You’re not here because you’re a criminal or a traitor,” Mikodez said. The Kel code of conduct didn’t matter to him. Jedao was dangerous. This was about mitigating danger, not meting out punishment.