Raven Stratagem

by Yoon Ha Lee

  “We should keep moving,” Tseya said, more strongly. Good: so what if she had problems with wide-open spaces or vacuum. She had made it across and they had an arch-traitor to shoot.

  They shed their suits, then tucked them into the breach. If someone found the breach before they located Jedao, they were done for anyway. It was still grating seeing Tseya in the Kel uniform. As for himself, it felt as though the fucking high general’s insignia was transmitting their position to the entire cindermoth.

  His best guess as to Jedao’s quarters took them through nerve-wrackingly identical passageways. It was hard not to read a certain smugness into the expressions of the ubiquitous painted ashhawks. If someone ever lets me decorate a moth, Brezan thought, I’ll have it done in a boring solid color. More seriously, he was used to taking variable layout for granted. Being locked out of the master map’s shortcuts disturbed him in ways he didn’t want to name.

  A clitter-clatter made them both tense, but it was only a servitor bearing a toolbox, carrying out routine maintenance of the sort that didn’t require the approval of a human technician. The servitor, a deltaform, took no more notice of them than Brezan would have taken of a floor-tile. Tseya’s eyes were considering, but he gestured for her to keep up, and she did. Other than the crossing, she was doing fine. He only hoped he was handling himself as well.

  They ran into their first Kel outside of what had to be the dueling hall; Jedao hadn’t bothered to change the painted ashhawks clutching swords. The two Kel, a soldier and a corporal, had the bleary expressions of people who just wanted to sleep. They almost walked right by Brezan and Tseya.

  “I can see discipline has gone to hell around here,” Brezan said caustically. He recognized them: Kel Osara and Corporal Merez. Neither was likely to give them trouble unless they were stupid enough to challenge Merez to a drinking contest. He had heard a sergeant swear that it wasn’t possible to get the man drunk without resorting to additives.

  The two jumped. Osara, quicker-witted, thumped a salute, her face going blank. Very Kel, and frankly the best thing she could do for herself. She could work out that something had gone seriously wrong for Brezan to be here, let alone with the rank he was claiming, but he hadn’t required her to think so she wasn’t going to.

  Merez, on the other hand, was trying to make sense of the situation. He stared at the wings-and-flame insignia, then saluted much more slowly.

  Before Merez could formulate a question, Brezan said sharply, “Is General Khiruev still alive?”

  “Yes, sir,” both Kel said.

  He wanted to be happy about the answer, but he didn’t have any guarantees as to the general’s condition. “Is she well?”

  Hesitation. “She’s alive, sir,” the corporal said.

  Wonderful. He wanted to pursue this, but they had a fox to kill. “Jedao?”

  No hesitation this time: “Alive, sir.”

  Damn. “I need directions to wherever Jedao is holed up,” Brezan said, “then to the general.”

  Merez gave the directions. As it so happened, Jedao had given Khiruev quarters just next to his. Brezan hated what that implied.

  “All right,” Brezan said to the two. “Head directly to barracks and stay there. Do not speak to anyone until I countermand this order. Go.”

  The two Kel marched off. For a moment Osara’s eyes lit with bemusement. Tseya murmured, after the Kel had rounded the corner, “We’d better hope they don’t run into anyone on the way.”

  “Not much we can do about it,” Brezan said.

  They reached Jedao’s quarters without further incident, even if it didn’t feel that way. Brezan glanced down the hall at the doors that led to Khiruev’s quarters, as though the general would come out to greet them. Hardly likely. He nodded at Tseya.

  A lot could go wrong when you messed with a full-fledged mothgrid, especially if a Shuos was monitoring it, which was why neither of them had tried it earlier. But they had to make the attempt now. Tseya had grid-diving experience. She pulled out a hacking device in the shape of a ring with an egregiously large opal cabochon surrounded by diamonds, which she had previously described as ‘my mother’s idea of fashionable,’ and cocked her head, listening to something only she could hear.

  Brezan was worrying that someone would show up at either end of the corridor when the door whispered open. Tseya straightened and nodded at him. Brezan had already drawn his gun. He checked the interior from where he was, then sprinted through and broke left, sweeping the room once again. There was nothing of interest except a jeng-zai deck and some tokens on a table. “Clear,” he said in a low voice.

  Their attempts at stealth hadn’t been good enough, unfortunately. “I’m right in here,” a horribly familiar voice called out. A door opened at the other end of the receiving room. Jedao was partly visible through the doorway, including half his smile.

  Brezan couldn’t help himself. He aimed and fired three times. The bullets whined as they ricocheted; something in the other room shattered. Jedao had already dodged back into the room, mirror-quick.

  “If you were serious about killing me,” Jedao said, “you’d have blown the whole place up, just like Kel fucking Command did with the other cindermoth. Quit wasting your bullets and my time, and let’s have a civilized conversation.”

  This couldn’t possibly work to their advantage if Jedao himself was suggesting it. It had to be a ruse. But if it gave Tseya a chance at Jedao—

  “I want your word,” Jedao said. Now he was dictating terms. “I’ll leave my sidearm in here. You can keep whatever the hell weapons you like, Brezan.”

  In agony, Brezan hesitated. The only thing keeping him from going in there anyway was the memory of his stinging hand, the scalding fact that Jedao was the better killer. Tseya didn’t say anything and was probably remaining in the hallway until she judged that she could enter safely, so he assumed he was to stick to the original plan. “Fine,” he said roughly. He holstered the gun out of a suicidal sense of honor. “Come out.”

  He had agreed not to shoot. He hadn’t said anything about other weapons. Jedao wasn’t stupid enough not to have noticed the loophole, and anyway, a Shuos would expect everyone to lie as much as he did. They both intended to betray the other. The question was who was faster.

  He might not survive this. But his orders were to give Tseya her opportunity. He was going to follow the damn orders for once.

  Jedao sauntered out of the room. That damnable tilted smile. Brezan clenched his left hand, wishing he could smash the fox’s face in. Jedao caught sight of Brezan’s insignia. His eyes widened. Then he laughed softly. “And people complained I got promoted too fast,” he said. “Well, congratulations. How are you liking the privileges of rank, General?”

  Then Jedao’s eyes narrowed, and he was looking over Brezan’s shoulder. Brezan didn’t dare turn at first, but he heard Tseya’s tread. She could walk silently when she cared to. That she didn’t now indicated her confidence.

  Brezan felt the heat of her presence and, to his mortification, flushed up the sides of his neck knowing she was so close, even if her attention was focused on another man. In spite of his original intention, he turned, slowly, to watch her. He wished he could run his hands through her hair, whose locks were curling free of the silver pins; marveled at how her eyes had gone rose-blue, sea-deep; wished that petal regard was focused on him instead, even knowing what it would do to him.

  Then he looked back at Jedao, which was what he should have been doing all along. Jedao was watching Tseya through lowered eyelashes. Brezan wondered, very cynically, when Jedao had last known any form of human contact that didn’t involve killing people. The intensity of Jedao’s regard worried Brezan, except Tseya didn’t give any indication that she was concerned.

  Slowly, Jedao walked toward Tseya, graceful, taking no notice of Brezan. He said something caressingly in a language that Brezan didn’t recognize. Tseya answered in the same language. Brezan eased into position, careful not to move too suddenly
, despite knowing that enthrallment didn’t break so easily.

  Brezan lunged, except Jedao wasn’t there anymore. He had whipped around Brezan and struck Tseya at the back of her head. The struggle was over so quickly that Tseya had slumped in Jedao’s arms before Brezan could react.

  Brezan discovered the gun in his hand, not that it did him any good. You’d think he’d learn.

  “Don’t,” Jedao said, not sounding enthralled in the least. “She’s alive, even if she’ll need medical care. I’d rather not kill her if I don’t have to. Especially not in a stupid accident.”

  Brezan stared at Jedao, then at Tseya, then at Jedao again. The enthrallment should have worked, unless—

  Unless Jedao wasn’t Jedao.

  He’d been played. From the beginning, even.

  Which meant he had just delivered them into the hands of someone even more dangerous than Jedao.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHERIS DUMPED TSEYA unceremoniously to the floor. She was already in motion. Vexingly, she still moved with the mirror-swiftness that Brezan had observed in the recordings of Jedao’s duels once upon a life. Brezan fought her, but she had already gotten a crushing grip on his throat. Wonderful, he thought as the world sank into blackness, I had to run afoul of infantry Kel.

  When Brezan came to, he had been expertly trussed up in spider restraints. Cheris had given him a chair that would, under other circumstances, have been downright luxurious. At least it wasn’t one of General Khiruev’s chairs, antiques that looked suspiciously like the general had a nervous habit of gouging the arms with her screwdrivers. Brezan didn’t think he could have endured that.

  Cheris, for her part, had draped herself over a chair with its back facing Brezan. “I was worried you were going to stay under all night,” she said. “Don’t bother yelling for help. No one will hear it. Formation instinct being what it is, I can’t risk it yet.”

  She was still speaking with Jedao’s accent. “We both know who you are,” Brezan said in his best temperate voice, which emerged as a croak. “You can stop pretending.”

  “That’s complicated,” Cheris said, “and anyway you’re confused as to who’s interrogating whom. Why did you try to kill me?”

  He should have kept his mouth shut. It was becoming a theme. On the other hand, the question wasn’t a hard one. “I should think that would be obvious,” he said. “You took over my general’s swarm as Shuos Jedao. Who, in case you were asleep for that particular lesson, has a history of blowing people up. I’d have to be insane to want to leave you in charge.”

  Cheris smiled Jedao’s smile at him. “I see that tact isn’t your specialty, but you’re not stupid. As you said, we both know I’m not Jedao, or your Andan comrade’s attempt would have succeeded.”

  “What have you done with her?” Brezan said before he could stop himself.

  Cheris raised an eyebrow at him. “Jedao would have killed her, but she’s not dead. That’s all you’re getting.”

  Brezan believed her, but who knew what condition Tseya was in. “You put a hell of a lot of effort into being a convincing Jedao,” Brezan said, remembering how this had all began. Maybe it was better to keep her talking. She might let something drop.

  “Believe it or not, it’s a side-effect of something Kel Command did to me. Anyway, let’s try again. Why did you try to kill me?”

  Oddly, she didn’t seem to be taking the assassination attempt personally. She was digging for his motivations. Why? Why did it matter? She could have killed him without any trouble. Come to that, she could have done that the first time around, too. He liked the implications less and less.

  Cheris was watching him patiently.

  “You hijacked my general’s swarm,” Brezan said, “whoever you were claiming to be. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Let you swan off with all those moths?”

  Cheris tapped the top of the chair. “And what was the swarm going to be used for?”

  “You know the answer to that question. Why are we even having this conversation?”

  “Are all generals this bad at giving straight answers?” Cheris said tartly. “It’s not even a hard question.”

  “We had orders to fight the Hafn,” Brezan said, quelling the urge to lunge at Cheris even though he had a good idea how that would end. “Which we would have managed just fine without your intervention.”

  “Mostly true,” Cheris said, “but there’s an exception. That exception would have gotten the lot of you killed. Never mind that. You must have followed the swarm’s movements to be able to board the command moth. I can only imagine you were watching its actions, too. This has undoubtedly told you all about how I’ve been randomly shooting up moths, or crashing them into cities, or filling them with poison gas.”

  “The sarcasm is much appreciated,” Brezan retorted. “I’m aware of how much success you’ve enjoyed.” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know how much of that success was ascribable to someone who had, until recently, been an infantry captain. “I’m also aware that you’ve been fighting the Hafn just as tamely as though Kel Command had you on a leash. But I refuse to believe you’re doing this for the benefit of the hexarchate.”

  “Yes, I imagine the hexarchate’s benefit is very important to you,” Cheris said, quite dryly. Her hands flexed.

  Brezan wasn’t thinking about her hands but her tone of voice. What the fuck had she picked up on? He didn’t need her figuring out that he entertained dangerously heretical attitudes toward his government.

  “You’re a terrible liar,” she added, although he hadn’t said a word. His heart shuddered. “You care about the swarm; well and good. You will find that I have taken care of the Kel better than Kel Command would have.”

  “This is why you sent that tactical group out to fight in a suicide formation,” Brezan said, even though provoking Cheris was a bad idea.

  “That was Commander Gherion,” Cheris said.

  Brezan bit back an oath. He had liked Gherion, and not just because Gherion appreciated his roast stuffed pheasant, that one time Brezan had invited him over for dinner.

  “He served well,” Cheris said with no discernible irony. “Someone had to fight, Brezan. There’s no way around it. Gherion chose how to carry out his mission. Kiora’s Stab was his choice, and it did as he intended. Tell me again, then. Why did you try to kill me?”

  Brezan glared at her. Too bad she was good at looking imperturbable. That must come with having the upper hand. “I am Kel,” he said through his teeth. He remembered the smug ashhawks, the smoke-coil wings, the hot regard of those golden eyes. “I have my orders.”

  Cheris laughed soundlessly. “We’re crashhawks. If you’re following orders, it’s because you want to. So it comes back to the question I keep asking you, and you keep dodging. Why did you try to kill me?”

  He couldn’t even make a fist. He had run out of facile answers. “I don’t know,” he said, hating how ragged his voice sounded. When Cheris didn’t respond, he said, more loudly, “I don’t know, all right? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  “I used to follow Kel Command, just as you did,” Cheris said. “But there’s a better way. I couldn’t see it until Jedao showed me.” When Brezan gaped at her, she added, “Jedao was evil, but that doesn’t mean he was automatically wrong.” She rose and began unlocking the restraints. “Here’s what will happen. I’m going to give you run of the swarm, and you can talk to your comrades. I’m certain they’ve worried about your fate. Ask them how the swarm has been run and how you’ve been treated. Formation instinct will ensure that they answer you honestly.” The last of the restraints snicked loose. “Then come back and tell me, to my face, why you want to kill me. Since you’ll be in command of the swarm, I doubt I’ll pose any threat to you.”

  Brezan scarcely dared to move, even though tensing his muscles surreptitiously told him he was free in truth. “They have no idea who you are, do they?”

  “I thought you’d figure that out, too,” Cheris said matter-of
-factly. “Confine me wherever you like. I have some things to work out in my head. After all, if you had intended to kill me, you’d have managed it already.”

  Brezan opened his mouth, considered the fact that he’d allowed her to keep talking while he was completely unrestrained, then shut it. “Give me your word that you’ll stay confined to quarters until I come back,” Brezan said.

  Kel Command was going to enjoy nailing pieces of him to some undecorated wall once they figured out what he’d been up to. They knew he could interpret his orders liberally, but he had crossed the line of what he could justify to them.

  “You have my word,” Cheris said. She rested her hand over the hilt of the calendrical sword she wasn’t wearing, a formality the Kel had not used in over a generation. “You may want to start with your general. She’s probably resting.”

  “Give me access to the mothgrid,” Brezan said.

  “Of course,” Cheris said. She muttered a passphrase in an unfamiliar language—in his hearing, but he doubted she had any more use for it.

  Brezan blinked as the mothgrid started talking to his augment again. It only took a moment to check the master map and to convince the terminal to cough up the current duty roster. “If this is part of some Shuos gambit after all,” Brezan said, “I’ll send you back to Kel Command in pieces.”

  She didn’t look impressed by the threat. Considering what she had already pulled off, however doomed, that was fair.

  Brezan got up. His muscles protested, but he hadn’t been tied up all that long. He glanced back at Cheris, who had relocated to a couch and had called up—was that some dueling drama? With dancers? Better not to ask.

  Although he half-expected to be jumped by heretic Kel when he stepped out, the hallway taunted him with its emptiness. That, and the same smug painted ashhawks.

  At this point, Brezan had two choices. He could pay General Khiruev a call, as Cheris had suggested, or he could go after Tseya, assuming the grid wasn’t lying to him about her location. Tseya wouldn’t approve of him talking to Cheris, but she might know what the situation called for. On the other hand, Brezan couldn’t help but feel that he owed it to himself to find out if Cheris’s contentions held any truth.