The Tyrant

by Seth Dickinson

  “Know her? I’m her sworn protector. I’m her knight! The Duchess Vultjag made me her knight! Fuck with me, and you’re fucking with Tain Hu!”

  “Do you know her purpose?” the voice asked.

  Purpose? Baru hadn’t even known her own purpose. And when Aminata had asked her, can you tell me the truth, Baru had said, I don’t know.

  What would Baru tell the Cancrioth her purpose was? Would she pretend to be a rebel again? Possibly. But she could just as well pass herself off as a loyal agent, a Parliamentary representative-on-mission, a Judiciary invigilator, even an openly acknowledged agent of the Throne. . . .

  “Of course I do,” she lied, as loudly as she could.

  “Tell me.”

  “Very weak attempt,” Aminata sneered. “She trusts me to keep her secrets.”

  The shadows of hands moved faintly in her vision, dark squid in a gray-green sea. Her interrogator, surprised at last, thrown off her impassive script.

  “Come on!” Aminata screamed. “Where’s that disembowelment you promised?”

  “Where is Abdumasi Abd?”

  “Up your ass.”

  “Where is Abdumasi Abd?”

  “Hey, navy girl,” Aminata began to sing-sob, “here’s waking up to you—”

  After a long time there was a new voice.

  Hands undid her restraints. No matter how she blinked she could not get her eyes to focus. At last someone unhooded a light and she seized on it, blinked and grimaced until she could resolve it into a lantern. She raised her eyes to the man holding it.

  He had an eyestalk.

  She boggled at him in exhausted horror and he said, wearily, “Yes, I know.”

  It was a tumor, of course. She’d seen stranger in the wards of hospital ships. But it was surreal to follow him like he was some officer’s steward, like he was an ordinary man. Call it Incrastic fastidiousness, but she found his deformity frightening. Evil. The character expressed itself in the flesh, didn’t it?

  He led her silently up narrow stairways, to a long black corridor with many doors, and, through one, into a stateroom without any engravings on the floor.

  “You may wash,” he said, in a rich basso voice.

  “Are you going to wait outside?” she asked, and then saw, to her astonishment, that the stateroom had its own bath chamber. This room alone, with its bed and couches and study, was preposterous! How could they have room for an attached bath?

  “I will, if you want. Just wash, please.” The stalk-eyed man looked very tired. “You’ve been in that filth too long.”

  Her burns were mostly superficial, but she absolutely had to wash them or risk fatal infection. There was no chance in stigma that she was going to do that with this man sitting here controlling her only exit.

  “What the fuck are you?” she demanded.

  He sat on the end of his bed, politely turned away from the washroom. There was dirt under his fingernails. Bright, faceted jewels glinted in the flesh of his tumor.

  “I am an onkos. I bear an old line. My name is Virios, but you will call me the Eye.”

  “You’re . . . you’re cancer. Aren’t you.”

  A sigh: he hated explaining this, clearly. “I share my body with the souls of those who held the line before me.”

  “Are you the captain of this ship?”

  “I wish I were. I wish we had a captain. The woman who tortured you wants to lead us, and I think soon she will succeed. I stole you away from her only because she wants you treated kindly, Aminata, and she does not want her followers to see her doing it.” He smoothed the bedcovers, and then, seeing dirt streaked on the sheets, snatched his hand away. There was an innocence to that gesture which made Aminata like him. “Will you wash, please? I want you covered.”

  She went into the washroom. The bulb-shaped clay vessel there was full of water almost to the brim. “This,” she said, loudly, “is too much.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “You can’t spare all this water.” Mariner’s ethics: “So I can’t use it.”

  “Consider it an act of hospitality,” the Eye called. “I want to welcome you as proper Oriati would. Please, wash and dress.”

  She dry-scoured her body, laved her wounds, succumbed to the temptation to sponge herself. She remembered the squid lashing at her face, and, shuddering, looked for soap. There was only ash.

  At last she came back out, dressed in knotted linens and a heavy cassock, to find him waiting patiently: just a man, a round and fatherly Oriati man with dirty hands and nice thick hair.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, warily.

  “Too much. You’re a sailor, yes? A navy woman? We haven’t the water to make the long journey southwest, back to our home. Our ship is hurt and leaking; we desperately need to make harbor. The Brain is working to convince the crew that the best way to find a port is to take one. By force.”

  “She’ll get you all killed.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “You don’t look much like . . .” She tiptoed around the word slavers. “Like an aristocrat.”

  “No.” He shook his head; Aminata was terrified his blind eye would be flung from the end of its stalk. “I was born common. When I took the immortata, I vowed to grow it as a sacred trust. Not a weapon, not a tool of bondage. The Cancrioth’s purpose is to explore the immortata and its marriage with the human body. We are not warriors. The Brain, in all her messianic delusion, has lost sight of that. And so I need your help.”

  Aminata, who had been waiting for this, the gentle request from the reasonable man, shocked herself by wanting to say yes: if only to have something to do, some duty to chase.

  “What do you want?”

  The Eye smiled softly. “Iraji, will you come in, please?”

  A rustling of silk from outside.

  “Oh!” Aminata said.

  The boy stood in the doorway, naked to the breech under a silk robe, beautiful as anyone she’d ever seen. He was Oriati and his eyes were brown and gold and fixed on hers. She was having trouble keeping her own eyes fixed in return. He walked like a pinstep dancer, each step happening in all the muscles of his calves, his hard hips, his lean and girdled core.

  Aminata grinned stupidly at him. “Hey,” she said. She felt suddenly very glad to be alive.

  The boy bowed like a very expensive whore. Aminata thought about what kind of habits she had, to see this man, not a boy, and to call his grace whorish. She corrected herself forcefully. The man had bowed with class.

  “Iraji oyaSegu,” he said, “recently off Helbride, now an initiate into the mysteries of the—the Cancrioth.” An odd pause there, as if he were expecting to be interrupted. He put a hand out to hold the doorframe. “May I bring you anything?”

  Anything at all, she thought, as long as you bring it. “My uniform and a boat back to my ship.”

  “I’m afraid I cannot possibly release you without throwing our crew into another mutiny.” The Eye got up from the bed, groaning a little, and went to Iraji. “I think she’ll be more comfortable with you, child. Please think on what I told you earlier. Please—just consider the good that could be done, if Tau could be brought back to us.”

  He squeezed the boy’s shoulder and left.

  “So,” Aminata said. “You’re new here, too?”

  Iraji shut the door gently behind the Eye. “They’re short on water, the crew’s understrength, and Sulane’s torpedo damaged them so badly they’re afraid they’ll founder in a storm. The Eye wants to go home. The Brain’s convinced she can awaken Oriati Mbo against Falcrest, and usher in a new age of restored Cancrioth rule; she wants war. The Womb takes care of the ship and its crew but won’t assert herself directly. That’s what I know. What about you?”

  Aminata blinked at him. More than a pretty face, then. “No more than you, if you saw Sulane destroyed.”

  He nodded. “Take off your cassock. I need to see to your burns.”

  If this was part of the interrogation games, if he
was here to confuse her between her duty and her desires, well, they’d picked the wrong woman as a target. She shrugged out of the Oriati cloth like it was dripping acid.

  “What does the Eye want us to do?” she asked, debating whether to lose the strophium, too: would she come on too strong?

  “To prove that we’re people.”

  Aminata blinked. “Is that in doubt? He seemed perfectly polite to us.”

  “Not to him,” Iraji said, with a quiet fear she could not understand. “Not to the Brain, either. Someone else here. Someone who’s alone.”

  “Who else is here? Aside from the Cancrioth, I mean?”

  “Oh,” he said, “quite a menagerie, actually.”

  She had to be kept hidden from the crew, Iraji explained. This part of the ship was sanctified for the protection of guests. The Womb watched over it; she had, Iraji imagined, roughly the same authority over the crew as a mother—not someone who followed you everywhere and gave you orders, but who was, in her own domain, invincible.

  “Have you got my sword?” she asked him.

  “You had a sword?”

  “It’s not really mine anymore, I gave it to Baru, but it’s a good blade. . . .”

  “Oh! Yes. Baru’s boarding saber.” He made an apologetic curtsy at her, upsettingly graceful. She was starting to think they could be friends, which made his beauty an unaffordable distraction. “I’m afraid the Brain insists foreigners can’t have weapons. The saber must be in an armory somewhere—Oh no. Hide!”

  He pushed her out of the corridor, into the shadows of a cross passage. “Don’t move.”

  A woman passed the intersection—a woman in an Imperial Navy uniform. Kings, look at her, look at that perfect carriage and contemptuous distance! It was Shao Lune! Shao Lune who’d been at Baru’s side in the embassy! She’d opposed Ormsment’s mutiny, too, hadn’t she? They had that in common.

  “Staff Captain?” Aminata called.

  Iraji groaned.

  “Ah.” Shao Lune turned crisply to block the intersection. “You’ve been released. What are you doing back there, Lieutenant Commander? Come out. And you’ll address me as mam while I’m in uniform.”

  “I’m a brevet-captain, actually, we’re equivalent in—”

  “The loyal navy does not recognize ranks bestowed by traitors. And in any case, a staff captain is senior to a brevet rank.” Shao Lune looked her over critically. “I’ll excuse your appearance on account of circumstances. But see to it the tunks don’t defame your reds.”

  “Yes, mam,” Aminata said, feeling as if she’d ordered water and been handed brine. Tunks, eh? At least she hadn’t said the other tunks.

  “My objective is to gather information about this vessel, in particular signs of political contact with the Oriati federations, as well as any form of chart or rutterbook that indicates this ship’s home port. Somewhere in Segu, no doubt. Or western Mzilimaki.”

  “Yes, mam. Can I assist, mam?”

  Shao Lune frowned at the way Aminata stood with Iraji. “Your orders are to remain in strictest isolation. Due to your heritage, you’re in danger of regression aboard this ship. As we have seen in Iraji’s case.” She smiled nightshade at him. “I’ll need you to report on whatever contact you’ve already had with the Cancrioth leadership—”

  “She’s relentless,” Iraji whispered, “you’ll never get away from her.”

  “Is that clear, Lieutenant Commander?” Shao Lune barked.

  “Yes, mam!” Aminata snapped a salute.

  “Very good. I’ll be in my cabin, taking measurements. Report to me before end of watch.” Shao Lune swept away with perfect confidence.

  “We’ve got to see the Prince-Ambassador.” Iraji pulled her in the other direction.

  “But the staff captain ordered me to—”

  “You can’t seriously want to listen to her!”

  “She’s my commanding officer,” Aminata said.

  Iraji sighed and crossed his lean arms. Interesting things happened in his bare shoulders. “Fine. As an agent of Apparitor, who acts in the name and image of the Emperor, I second you to my service, and do detach you from all other duties in consideration of the Emperor’s own work.”

  Now she could allow herself to call Shao Lune a cunt, if only in her head.

  “When you say we’ve got to see the Prince-Ambassador, do you mean the Prince-Ambassador . . . ?”

  He did.

  The Prince’s door was guarded by a stanchion-thick Oriati woman with fighting ropes around her fists. She marked Aminata with obvious dislike, but stood aside graciously for Iraji. The cabin inside was as vastly luxurious as the stateroom the Eye had given Aminata.

  But this one had been destroyed. The teak had been scratched, the furniture dragged over the wood in some furious attempt at erasure. A red wine stain marred the wall. The place stank of sick.

  “I don’t want company,” a thin voice said.

  A short, slouching laman with wide hips and giant bruised eyes came out of the washroom. All rotted grandeur: the flaking ceremonial paint, stained khanga, thick cracked lips and small empty mouth. The bright Prince she’d seen in the embassy had gone. Tau-indi Bosoka was a clay amphora emptied out and smashed.

  Iraji bowed deeply. “I’ve brought a guest, your Federal Highness.”

  “There are no guests here. We’re all strangers to each other.” What shocked Aminata was how little this sounded like whining. Tau-indi said it with such simplicity: these are the conditions of our estrangement.

  “Nonetheless. May I present the Burner of Souls, Aminata isiSegu.”

  A flicker of interest crossed the laman’s face, neither hateful nor solicitous. “Hello,” Aminata said, wary of this royal ruin. It was important, in Oriati etiquette, to establish some shared point, some bond . . . all she could think of was the disaster. “I saw you at the embassy on Hara-Vijay. I’m glad you escaped.”

  “You ordered the burning of the grounds.” Tau scratched behind their ear. “You murdered all those people. No wonder you’re here. You belong among us.”

  Aminata looked at Iraji. Iraji did not react.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Aminata demanded.

  “Ah. I’ve been cut out of trim. I cannot be connected to other human beings. The Womb did it to me.” Tau wiped their finger on the wall. “Say what you came to say and go. I want to sleep.”

  “Your Federal Highness,” Aminata said, feeling that she stood in the dead beacon of an abandoned lighthouse, that she had some responsibility to kindle it again, for the sake of diplomatic relations if nothing else, “the Eye asked us to speak to you. Iraji and I. I don’t know why, but here we are.”

  “Abdumasi Abd,” Iraji murmured. “Tell them about Abd.”

  Oh. So that was the game. What a roundabout way to get at the question. But then again, she would have been just as subtle. And she’d almost fallen for it.

  “Please,” Iraji whispered, “if you won’t trust me, trust Baru.”

  What did Baru have to do with this? “You know her?”

  “Of course I do,” Iraji said, loudly. “She saved me on Cheetah. She saved me again on this ship.” A very slight swallow, delicious action of the throat and lips, but all covered in grief. “Is she gone?”

  “I don’t know. I hope not.” Aminata had to laugh: “She’s hard to kill.”

  “Yawa didn’t lobotomize her?”

  “No. She and Yawa seemed to be friends. I wouldn’t be here at all”—don’t let yourself turn bitter, Aminata, you face your duty whatever it might be—“except that Baru came up with a plan to go to Ormsment together—”

  Tau-indi’s head snapped up from their chest. Aminata heard joints pop with the violence of the motion. “Baru asked you to bring her to Ormsment?”

  “Sure,” Aminata said, warily, “she used herself as bait to get me aboard Sulane. So I could see this ship safely through the minefield.”

  “No.” Tau-indi impaled her on a glare like a vivisection knife: an
instrument deployed, for seemingly the first time in Tau’s life, without any consideration for its target’s comfort. “That’s not why she did it. She did it because I told her that she had to confront Ormsment to heal the wound. What happened?”

  “Well, uh”—Aminata thinking suddenly of Shao Lune’s warning against contamination, of Oriati superstitions infecting and thriving in her blood—“Baru surrendered herself, and Ormsment ordered her keelhauled. I didn’t see her after that. I thought it was a stupid risk . . . if I were Ormsment I would’ve slashed her tendons. . . .”

  “Ormsment couldn’t have done that,” Tau said. “No more than she could’ve ordered a lobotomy. To diminish Baru would have diminished the reason for everything she’s done.” Iraji was smiling and Aminata didn’t know why. “And after that, Sulane attacked Eternal, and was destroyed? I saw that.”

  Aminata nodded hesitantly. What would Shao Lune think? Was she answering Tau’s questions out of some hereditary weakness? Had Iraji addled her with his beauty?

  “Her actions returned to her,” Tau murmured. “Baru turned back to confront her enemy. Ormsment refused to change her own path, and was destroyed by it. Was there anything strange about Baru? Any sudden change in her behavior?”

  “She surrendered herself to save my life,” Iraji said, brightly.

  “I saw her volunteer to die in another woman’s place,” Aminata added, simply because it irritated her to hear Oriati nobility disparaging Baru.

  Tau’s eyes narrowed. “And what happened?”

  “I took the spear meant to kill her. Right here”—thumping her chest—“I was wearing armor. It was just a fishing spear anyway.”

  “I see . . .” Tau-indi breathed.

  Iraji’s hands clenched in excitement. “Your Highness?”

  An awful brittleness in Tau’s voice: like ice on the verge of melting, warming but losing strength. “I think it is possible that the Womb’s spell of excision had, ah”—their voice cracked—“had effects she could never anticipate. Baru Cormorant was a wound in trim, an upwelling of grief, a hole. All those who knew her would find only abandonment and regret.

  “But when one bond is cut, Iraji, the loose thread may fasten on another. I was cut loose. There were many, many threads seeking a place to fasten. . . .”