by E. M. Hardy
Isin downed another glass of water to steady her nerves, suddenly doubting her alliance with Martin. She had aligned herself with him because she thought he was a force of stability, one that preferred not to rock the boat if he could avoid it. If he wasn’t as solid as she thought he was, then she would need to activate certain contingencies to curtail Martin before he threatened the League of Merchants.
Those contingencies, however, were a last resort. She needed to gather more information first, and she needed to gather it fast before doing anything rash. The last thing she wanted to do was start a war without gathering all the facts. And she would have those facts before she committed herself and the League.
She finished toweling off, donned her robes, and proceeded to her desk to begin writing up a new set of orders when a knock on the door interrupted her plans. She straightened up, reaching for a bundle of poisoned needles in a small compartment under the desk.
Three knocks, a pause, and another knock followed by a tap on the knob. She relaxed somewhat, recognizing the pattern. It was one of the lookouts, signaling that all was safe. She slid the needles into her sleeves, tightened the belt on her robe, and carefully opened the door.
“Yes?” she asked, staring down at a young boy in clean clothes, with neatly-trimmed hair scented powder. It was, indeed, the lookout working in this hotel as a bellboy.
“You have a guest waiting for you in the lobby, ma’am. One of them clay men, asking to meet up with you.”
“Thank you. Tell him I’ll be coming down in… oh, ten, maybe fifteen minutes,” Isin said, as she smiled and nodded at the lookout, her breath catching as the hair on her neck stood on end. What did Martin want from her?
The lookout returned her smile. “Will do, ma’am. By the way ma’am, the proprietor says that he has a new pork dish on the menu, a recipe made with that fancy black sauce from the Empire. I think it was called soy-something? I can bring up a sample if you’d like, courtesy of the house.”
[Translation: do you need an escape plan?]
Isin thought for a moment, then shook her head once more. “That would be lovely. Let me just meet with my guest before cooking it up, though. I’m not sure how long our conversation would take, and I’d hate to let a lovely meal get cold and go to waste.”
[Translation: prepare a plan, but stand by.]
The young boy nodded cheerily, with much more enthusiasm after Isin gave him a coin. A couple doors down the corridor, a guest idling on a couch and smoking tobacco asked the boy if she could get a sample of the chef’s new dish made with the exotic black sauce. The boy nodded, promising to bring the dish up right away. The woman shook her head, saying that she’d take her meal in the lobby.
Isin nodded to the operative, who nodded back in return. She would be Isin’s backup if things went bad, make a distraction and give her time to escape.
Isin hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
***
“Ah, Martin. You have no idea how relaxing my afternoon was, especially after that miserable slog through the sun and sand. I hope you have a very good reason for ruining it.”
Isin smirked, masking her fears with playful teasing and just a hint of irritation. She spoke without any real heat or venom in her words as she sat down beside the walker, thanking the server when he brought a glass of chilled water to her table. Martin reacted well to frank talk, and he tended to adopt a more submissive and conciliatory stance when faced with a more assertive individual. She just had to make sure, however, that she didn’t cross the line into hostile and combative. Martin tended to stiffen up in those situations, and she wanted him to be as relaxed and off-guard as possible.
“Sorry for that, Isin. I know you want to just chill and take the day off after a long and fruitful journey, but I really need your advice this time around.”
“Ugh,” she grumbled, sipping at her water while visibly eyeing the walker with suspicion. She let Martin see her displeasure, let him squirm a little about how much he had inconvenienced her. This would give her a little bit more leverage in whatever he had in mind. “Well I’m here already, all dressed up and whatnot. So what do you need?”
“Two things, actually. I trust you’re already aware of what happened up north?”
“Oh?” Isin remarked, outwardly quirking an eyebrow in disdain while inwardly rushing to come up with a usable reply. “Did that general of yours, Shen Feng, stop the Shogunates, or are they marching on to the Red City as we speak?”
Isin felt that Martin took a little bit too long to reply and could almost feel the walker’s nonexistent eyes scanning her face for tells of any kind. Not a chance; Isin had come to this meeting prepared, recovered from a good night’s rest, which made it much easier for her to keep her tics and tells in check.
Martin sighed, shaking the walker’s head while doing so. Isin wasn’t sure if she successfully feigned innocence or if he just chose to ignore her false ignorance.
“Long story short, the Shogun pulled his army back to the coastline to meet up with reinforcements from the islands. He intends to regroup and slam into Shen Feng’s army with a fresh wave of troops and a hell of a lot more blood-bound weapons at his disposal. I’ve got a surprise in store for our good friend the Shogun when he comes a-knocking with his troops, but that’s not why I’m here.”
“So why are you here and pestering me?”
“Um… how do I say this without coming across as offensive?” Martin’s walker actually fidgeted in its seat like a child urgently needing to use the toilet.
Isin laughed, amused by the sight of the normally-stoic clay man visibly squirming in great discomfort. “I’ve had people call me a lot of rude, vomitous things with a lot more enthusiasm before, Martin. Whatever you have to say, I promise not to get offended. Now spit it out already!”
Martin inhaled sharply, nodded, and leaned in closer before whispering. “How did you manage to take control of four emirates?”
Isin couldn’t help blinking in confusion, at a loss for words. “You kind of lost me there,” she finally said, not quite comprehending what Martin had in mind. “You’ll have to explain a bit further.”
“It’s like this,” Martin stammered. “You mentioned before that the League of Merchants popped up because a couple of traders were tired of how emirs messed with their business all the time. How’d your people do that? How did you ultimately wrestle power away from the established leaders of small nations and give it to those who’ll listen to you?”
Isin narrowed her eyes, turning the gears in her head as she digested Martin’s words. “Ah,” she said simply, after a few moments. “This is for your pet Daimyo, yes?”
The walker didn’t have a face she could scrutinize, but the sharp bunching of its shoulders and the sudden stiffening of its spine told her all she needed to know. “Damn,” Martin said after a while, shaking the walker’s head. “Got it on the first take.”
“Just an educated guess,” Isin responded, granting Martin a self-indulgent smile. She allowed herself to relax now that she knew what Martin wanted from her.
Martin waited for Isin to say something else, to expound further, but she sealed her lips tight. She just stared at the walker, a confident smirk on her lips as she sipped at her glass of water. “Well?” she finally asked, after a few more minutes of Martin awkwardly staring at her.
“Alright,” he huffed through his walker, shaking its head in surrender. “Do you have a secure place where we can talk more freely? Away from prying ears?”
Isin almost signaled the receptionist to have him clear out the hotel lobby, to show Martin how deeply she managed to root her people into the Emirate of Ma’an now that it was openly working with the League of Merchants. Then she remembered that the League itself could be a problem. Rival executives or ambitious operatives could use this information to knock her down, take her place if she got careless. Would her rivals eventually discover Martin’s request for a private meeting? Of course,
but she’d rather not make their lives easier than she needed to.
So she simply nodded and brought Martin’s walker back to her room. She passed by the disguised operative at the lobby floor, giving her the hand-signal for privacy. The disguised operative put down her cup of tea a few minutes after Isin left, before following them to Isin’s floor and resuming her watchful position on the hallway’s couch.
“Right,” Isin said, as she locked the bolts of the door and plopped down on a cushioned chair. “This should be safe enough. Now what did you have in mind, and how can I help?”
“It’s like this,” Martin replied, as he took a seat of his own in front of Isin. “Ishida Nagatoshi, the exiled Daimyo attached to Venkati’s side, already has a bone to pick with the Shogun for executing his father. His family supported peace with the Empire of Ren and resisted Ye Heng when he wanted to plunge the Taiyo Isles back into war. Ishida was named Daimyo after his father’s execution, and was sent away to the Sahaasi to reinforce the Maharaja’s people. All this, while the Shogun holds his family and lands hostage to force his compliance.”
Martin leaned in closer, lowering his voice as he continued explaining. “After the Shogun’s costly victory against my walkers, he pulled a lot of his people out of the Isles. His forces control much of the eastern coast, and he is confident that the Empire can’t touch the Isles without going through his people first. Shen Feng’s troops and his militia dug in around the Empire’s eastern borders, containing the Shogunates in the coastal areas. Shen Feng’s waiting for a few thousand of my most recently-manufactured walkers to catch up, while Ye Heng is waiting for his troops to wade across the seas between the Taiyo Isles and the eastern coast of the Empire.”
“Let me guess,” Isin nodded, cutting Martin off with a smirk. “This is where your good friend Ishida comes sailing into the Isles with his people, taking them back while the Shogun’s tied up overseas.”
Martin paused, visibly surprised by her remark. “Yeah, I keep forgetting how smart you are when you’re not being a complete ass.”
“Can your pet daimyo actually pull this coup off?” Isin replied, ignoring his barb. “If I recall correctly, the Shogun pushed him off with just a few thousand men so he can’t be much of a threat.”
“That’s where Maharaja Venkati’s gurkhas come into the picture.”
Isin’s eyes widened as everything clicked into place. “Yes,” she chuckled, nodding her head as the pieces started fitting in. “Yes, I can see that working. The Maharaja puts his own puppet into the Taiyo Isles, one that he can more easily manipulate.” She straightened up and studied Martin’s walker. “And where do I come in in all this?”
“Ishida Nagatoshi is an honorable but unambitious man. He is a warrior at heart, eager to liberate his clan. Yet, he is not eager to return under the thumb of the Empress, nor does he have any desire to take over the rest of the Isles. The other clans may halt their attack upon the Empire and lay down their arms if the Shogun falls, but they will not submit to his rule.
“Maharaja Venkati has no interest in taking over the Isles either. He formed an alliance of convenience with the Shogun against the Empire to secure his dominion, but he is all too aware of the Shogun’s long-term ambitions of conquest. He wants the Shogunate dismantled and will send his troops to help do so, but he doesn’t want the Isles of Taiyo. They are simply too far away for him to administer properly, especially since the varying clans of the Isles are simply too different from his own. He has enough troubles keeping the newly-independent Sahaasi Dominion intact, and the last thing he wants is to get tangled up in islands a couple thousand miles away.”
“And you want me and the League of Merchants to step in, help control the Taiyo Isles and keep them under control,” Isin remarked eagerly, already imagining how useful it would be to have a solid base of power in the mysterious new lands to the northwest. “The Daimyo and the Maharaja will come in, clear the way, and my people will sweep in after them to clean everything up and keep an eye on the disparate clans.” Isin checked herself, suddenly wary of Martin. If it sounded too good to be true, it probably wasn’t.
The walker’s featureless face locked on Isin’s eyes, examining her from top to bottom. “Not just that. Did you remember what you asked of me before, when you promised your aid? About the governments of my world?” Isin nodded silently, genuinely curious but still cautious about what Martin had in mind.
“The Isles of Taiyo could serve as a testing ground for those ideas.”
Isin frowned, furrowing her brows in thought, before nodding her head. “I can see that working. Yes, definitely. What did you have in mind?”
“Crafting a constitution that the different clans of Taiyo will agree with.”
“A what?”
“A constitution.” The walker nodded, preparing to expound further. “A body of laws and principles on how a state will govern itself.”
“Okay, I see your point. Laws are nice and all, but they’re worthless until I can plant enough operatives to subvert the ruling families. Only then will those laws mean anything.”
“What? No! I don’t mean for you to force the Taiyo to obey your people. I want you to organize them, get them to come together willingly, and come up with a set of laws that will bind the Taiyo together as a people. You’re going to help them craft their own laws.”
“That’s stupid,” Isin shot back, shaking her head. “I understand the use of laws for keeping slaves and peasants in check, especially when you have soldiers, guards, and spies to enforce them. But why should the ruling families let their own laws restrict their actions? What’s the point of taking power only to surrender it just like that?”
“Remember what you told me about how the League of Merchants came to be?” Martin asked rhetorically. “Your organization started off with one objective: to free yourselves from the emirs and emiras stepping all over the traders. That worked out well enough until you grew large enough to challenge and then overthrow your oppressors. You came out on top, taking control of multiple emirates. Then your group forgot why you assembled in the first place. You started turning on each other, everyone stepping all over one another to get more power. No laws, no principles—just naked ambition. Give it enough time, and the League will end up crumbling from within like the emirs and emiras before it.”
Isin bristled at the accusation, but she bit her tongue and forced herself to nod as she didn’t want to get on Martin’s bad side. Besides, he had a point. She saw this future for the League as well and asked for his help in preventing such an outcome. She knew all too well that the League wouldn’t last long the way it was, with the Executives stabbing each other in the back all the time. It still hurt to hear it from someone else, however.
“The same happened all too often in the countries back in my home world,” Martin continued, either oblivious to or outright ignoring Isin’s growing discomfort. “We had regimes controlling everything with an iron fist, forcing their citizens to do things their way or else. We also had nations that elected leaders to rule for them, to make the decisions that would please the people in their state. Then there were nations that insisted nobody should own anything and everything should be shared. We also had nations that believed people should do all they could to enrich themselves.
“The only nations that rose up in the world, however, were the ones whose leaders created systems of laws strong enough, respected enough, to outlast their rule. These laws would survive the leaders long after they’re gone; guide the fate of their people through the years, decades, and centuries. Leaders who bound themselves to laws, obeyed them not just in letter but also in spirit, would leave behind a stronger, healthier nation. Successors would build upon those laws, improving on their strengths and addressing flaws as they came up.
“Leaders who weakened these laws, however, always left behind a sicker, more fragile nation. Some did so by outright ignoring the laws when they were inconvenient, declaring themselves somehow
‘above’ all the obligations of other leaders. Others would corrupt the laws, pretending to work within their parameters while twisting them to serve their own purposes. The entire system will eventually come crashing down when enough people realize that might makes right, that you can force whatever you want since you have the bigger stick or the sharper sword. Why bother playing by the rules, by the laws, when you can just make them up as you go along?”
“But that’s how the world works!” Isin shot back, annoyed by Martin’s naiveté. She openly scorned at him, curling her lip up in disgust as she found herself no longer able to control her outburst—much less her facial tells. “The only reason I’m listening to you right now is because you have some modicum of power, of threat that forces me to work with you. And the only reason you’re talking to me right now is because you can somehow use me. Take that away, and neither of us would be capable of influencing anything around us, much less a bunch of squabbling tribes hidden away on their islands.”
Isin kept right on scowling, not caring what Martin thought of her right now. He was being ridiculous, and she realized that he may not be as useful to her as she first thought.
“I won’t deny what you said,” Martin finally said after an extended period of silence. “We are where we are right now because of the power we wield. But let me ask you something, Isin: why is it that nobody in this world even remembers the invaders?”
Isin blinked, taken by surprise. “The invaders? What in Jahannam do they have to do with what we are talking about?”
“Why is it that nobody remembers what happens when the invaders come? Why is it no empire or kingdom or whatever lasts long enough to prepare for an apocalypse that occurs every few thousand years or so?”