Raven Stratagem

by Yoon Ha Lee

  “We’re cleared for a shuttle to ferry you over, sir,” the pilot said after a while. Brezan had been so busy gawking at the silkmoth that he had forgotten to keep track of passing time. “Follow the gold markers and you’ll be right there.”

  Brezan unwebbed himself, then his duffel bag. “I appreciate it,” he said.

  The shuttle hop was uneventful. He had expected landing on a silkmoth to feel different, and he laughed at himself. Stepping off the shuttle was another story. When the hatch opened, he had the unshakable impression that he had disembarked into a garden, if gardens came hung around with lights like floating crests and falling petals and—was that a miniature waterfall? While he’d previously encountered a couple of Andan moths, none of them had been this extravagant. He should have remembered that the Andan often entertained guests, sometimes from outside the hexarchate. Presenting the appearance of power and luxury would be important.

  Andan Tseya was standing atop a sculpted hill, flanked by three birdform servitors on each side. Trust an Andan to seize the high ground. It was one of those tactical principles you could count on even very unmilitary Andan to have internalized.

  Tseya was a tall woman, almost as tall as he was. Long black hair rippled down to her waist. Her skin was porcelain-pale, and she had the kind of face that was calculated to stop hearts if you forgot what she was, which Brezan had no intention of doing. Her eyes were currently brown—he checked—although he looked away as soon as he could, just in case.

  Her blue silk blouse had been tailored very precisely. On someone less poised it would have looked stiff and uncomfortable. Her slacks were a darker blue, and her shoes had been dyed dark. A blue gem glittered from the brooch at her throat. He assumed it was a sapphire.

  Brezan bowed deeply to her, remembering his etiquette class. “Agent,” he said, using a very polite honorific. Andan hierarchies confused him, but you couldn’t go wrong by erring on the side of flattery. “I am at your service by order of Kel Command.”

  “I honestly didn’t think they’d send me my very own high general,” Tseya said. She had a warm, wry voice, an alto, and it made him want to trust her. “I’m Andan Tseya, as you already know. I have to be frank, General. Your people and mine haven’t been notable for playing nicely with each other in recent years. Is this mission going to be a problem for you?”

  What was she reading in his body language? General Khiruev had once told him, with an amused glint in her eye, that he looked perpetually irascible. “Look,” Brezan said, “the Kel may be strong, loyal, and stupid, but none of those is synonymous with ‘bigoted.’”

  “Or ‘tactful,’” Tseya said, her smile sudden and merry. “I can tell you don’t approve of the decor, so why don’t we get you settled in? One of the servitors can take your duffel bag.”

  Brezan would have preferred to hold on to it, but he had no polite way to demur. He handed the bag over. The servitor said, “It is our honor to serve.” He almost jumped, having forgotten that Andan servitors sometimes spoke.

  The silkmoth’s hallways weren’t straight, or even curved in a sensible way. Rather, they meandered. Brezan was convinced that Tseya was taking the scenic route. It stood to reason that even a moth this small could have variable layout if it had a state-of-the-art power core, but why would you make the interior less efficient on purpose?

  “We’ll be consolidating the gardens for the trip to conserve power,” Tseya said, confirming his suspicion. “Not one for flowers and calligraphy scrolls, are you?” She had paused next to a scroll that was artfully draped over a tree’s low-hanging branch. Brezan was afraid it would blow away, even though there was no wind.

  If this had been a glancing encounter at some official function, he could have entertained her by trying to lie his way out of this, but as it stood... “It’s good calligraphy,” Brezan said. “If you expect me to be able to identify the style, though, you’re looking at the wrong Kel.”

  “At least you know there are different styles,” Tseya said, smiling. “I daresay a lot of my people can’t tell a dagger from a toothpick.”

  “No, that’s us,” Brezan said, deadpan. “I’m fairly sure I’ve never heard of toothpicks.”

  “I think we’re going to get along, General.”

  They rounded a bend that featured, among other things, a clear, bright pond with the biggest carp Brezan had ever seen. He hoped like fuck that the carp were an illusion because what did they eat? What if they got hungry? Could they leap out of the pond and attack passers-by?

  A tiny, tidy arch bridge with the factions’ emblems carved into the rails spanned the pond. Tseya stepped onto the bridge without any sign that the scene bothered her. After a moment, Brezan followed, giving the carp a last nervous look.

  Tseya had noticed, not that he had made any effort to hide his reaction. “You think this is extravagant, don’t you? Personally, I find the meditations for the remembrances much more pleasant when I can do them in beautiful surroundings.” Moth personnel were exempt from observing the remembrances while in transit, but some people insisted anyway.

  Brezan considered this. “I suppose I could get the grid to image me something pretty,” he said, “but I can’t see why I would want to. It would be too distracting.”

  “And blank walls aren’t distracting?”

  Had they just passed a waterbird with wise eyes? “I’m used to them,” Brezan said. He’d been raised on a station that didn’t believe in pretending to be a miniature planet. It had had parks, but none as lavish as this garden.

  “Suit yourself.”

  Thankfully, they soon arrived at his assigned quarters. Small potted trees stood to either side of the door. Brezan had expected to be deposited in some small, soothing, out-of-the-way room. He hadn’t reckoned on Andan notions of ‘small’ or ‘out-of-the-way.’

  The room was a suite like the one General Khiruev had had on the Hierarchy of Feasts, and which that prick Jedao would have kicked her out of. Brezan hoped this suite wasn’t bigger, but it sure as hell looked like it. For guests of state, he assumed. Thoughtfully, Tseya had decorated the receiving room with an ink painting of an ashhawk clutching arrows in its talons. General Andan Zhe Navo, who had served with such distinction among the Kel, was supposed to have been an archer as well as everything else. Not a subtle reminder, but it didn’t bother him.

  The servitor discreetly set his duffel bag down, then withdrew. Tseya paid it no heed. “I’ll give you an hour to settle in,” Tseya said, as if the walk had been strenuous. “Join me for lunch when you’re ready. One of the servitors will be on call in case. Failing that, you can’t go wrong by following the yellow flowers.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. He’d noticed the flowers and their different colors, but he hadn’t realized that they were functional as well as decorative. A neat alternative to hanging signs, unless you had one of those rare incurable allergies.

  “Oh, and we have every sort of tea you might want to relax with. I mean it. The grid will tell you. Get me to talk you through the alcohol if that’s what you’re after, though. One of my cousins stocked the Orchid and their taste in wines is a little abstruse.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, too,” Brezan said, although his taste in alcohol ran to the stuff you drank primarily to get drunk, and which could hardly be described as ‘abstruse.’

  Tseya regarded him questioningly, then murmured an excuse and left. When the door closed, Brezan slumped in relief for all of six seconds. Then he looked around at the wasteful expanse of the receiving room, at the beautifully executed painting. The brushstrokes were neither too loose nor too controlled, which he had found out during calligraphy lessons was harder than it looked. He had a quiet few moments of panic. Any second now a real general was going to show up and kick him out.

  Shut up, Brezan told his brain. Kel Command was unpredictable, but they didn’t pull this kind of stunt for laughs. Besides, he couldn’t afford to lose his head. He had to help rescue General Khiruev and
the swarm from Jedao.

  He spent about twelve minutes unpacking and arranging his belongings. What was he supposed to fill all this space with? Some officers hauled lots of personal items around with them. General Khiruev’s collection of gewgaws. Commander Janaia’s octopus figurines. (She refused to explain why octopuses.) Major-analyst Shuos Igradna’s flutes, most of which weren’t in tune with each other, or possibly anything. For his part, Brezan had left most of his belongings with his parents. He wasn’t sure why he had wanted to split his life in two. The partition had seemed very important when he was young, and then he had never grown out of the habit.

  Ruefully, Brezan looked at the one item he had put on the largest table in a vain attempt to make it look less empty. His twin sisters Miuzan and Ganazan had given it to him when he graduated Kel Academy: a miniature orrery. A beautiful piece of work, he had to admit—silver-gold circles and gleaming gears and spinning jeweled planets. When he watched it too long, he could almost hear it singing. All the moons exhibited a shadowfall of feathers, an endless ashen drift. The orrery didn’t correspond to any system any mothgrid he had accessed would admit to. The twins professed ignorance of the matter; he tended to believe them. In his gloomier moments, Brezan thought that the orrery represented some quiet procession of worlds and moons untouched by the hexarchate’s rot—except there was that endless shadowfall, the touch of ashhawk conquest.

  He reached for the orrery, then decided to leave it alone. In the meantime, if he was going to rattle around here, he might as well distract himself by considering clothing options. He had taken a protocol class in academy like everyone else, but he’d forgotten most of it. The refresher had been more confusing than anything else.

  Brezan sorted through his civilian clothes several times, then shook his head. Fuck it, he’d stick to the uniform. It was, if not necessarily the best option, at least not incorrect. So what if she thought it was boring? If she disdained his attire, he could console himself that he hadn’t designed the damn thing. On impulse, however, he put on two of his rings so that he didn’t feel so damn stiff.

  He sat and kicked at the floor, wishing he didn’t feel so intimidated. Dealing with another Kel officer would have been one thing. There he knew what to do. But here? Tseya was running the operation, and she wouldn’t consider him reliable if he was scared off by a show of (say) fancy cutlery.

  Be fair, he told himself. So far Tseya had been perfectly civil. As long as they had to work together, he owed her the same.

  Brezan asked the grid how long it would take him to reach wherever it was that Tseya wanted to meet for lunch. He added eighteen minutes to the answer just in case. Then he fidgeted until it was time to set out. He wondered how hard it would be to get lost. Too bad he hadn’t brought anything to draw a map on, not that maps helped with variable layout on a potential hostile—Stop that.

  As it turned out, the yellow flowers helpfully leaned over on their thornless stems to point the way whenever he approached. Brezan supposed some Nirai lab had received a great deal of money to get them to do that. He passed some more long-necked birds, usually but not always white, some with fanciful colored crests. They seemed unconcerned about his presence. He could only assume that no one had told them how many Kel enjoyed hunting. Brezan had never tried it, mainly due to squeamishness. Maybe the birds sensed they had nothing to fear from him.

  I am such a stationer, Brezan thought, and hurried on, ignoring the sudden unsettling trill of frogs. He even managed to hurry past the carp. He was almost but not entirely certain it was the same pond that Tseya had led him past earlier.

  The bewildering garden path and its accommodating yellow flowers led to a more normal corridor and an open archway hung about with curtains. “Come in,” Tseya called out.

  Eleven minutes early, not too bad. Brezan had to keep himself from glancing back at the last yellow flower to see if it now pointed in a different direction. Bracing himself, he stepped into the room. To his surprise, the decor was restrained. Of note was a single vase in the corner half as tall as he was, some kind of celadon. Food awaited them on a low table. Tseya was already seated on the floor. Across from her was a blue cushion for him. And, interesting touch, at the center of the table was a container full of toothpicks. Andan humor?

  “You look like you think the food’s rigged to blow,” Tseya remarked. “Alas, I’m only mediocre at demolitions, which was a great disappointment to my instructors. Do sit down, there’s no sense going hungry while we size each other up.”

  “Of course, Agent.”

  “You needn’t be so formal. I do have a name.” She smiled with her eyes.

  He stopped himself from protesting just in time, and sat down.

  “I assume you’ve been warned not to play jeng-zai.”

  It wasn’t as though he’d be admitting to a weakness she hadn’t already guessed. “I avoid it, yes,” Brezan said. “I once joined General Khiruev and some of the other staff officers for a game. She cleaned us all out despite drawing consistently terrible hands.”

  Tseya poured tea first for him, then for herself. She didn’t make a ceremony of the act. In response to his blink of surprise, she made a moue. “Has it never occurred to you, General—”

  His turn. “Just Brezan, please.”

  “—Brezan, then. Has it never occurred to you that not all Andan are equally enamored of the rules of etiquette? Sometimes I just want to drink the damn tea.”

  If this was a ploy to gain sympathy, it was working admirably. “I’m afraid the only significant contact I’ve had with your people has been during official functions,” Brezan said.

  “And I’m sure you found those occasions charming,” Tseya murmured. She picked up a piece of something in dark sauce with her chopsticks, chewed, swallowed. “Shall I taste everything to prove there’s no poison?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Brezan said, besides which it wouldn’t prove anything anyway. He began eating. The dark sauce was mildly sweet, with a hint of lemongrass and maybe fish sauce. As for the meat, he couldn’t identify it. But it was likable enough. He’d have to ask for the recipe later.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Tseya said after a while. Brezan had finished most of his rice and she was only a quarter of the way through her bowl. “I can’t imagine it was easy for you to be separated from your comrades this way.”

  Explaining to her what he thought of Kel Command’s decision to make Jedao immortal was tempting, but a bad idea. “I ought to be grateful,” he said, feeling anything but. Sitting here with an Andan only reminded him how much he missed high table. “I’m given to understand that Jedao hasn’t blown up the swarm, at least.” He’d had some time to catch up on reports before the rendezvous.

  “He’s a Shuos,” Tseya said, “which means he’s like an Andan, except with worse public relations.”

  Brezan nearly choked on a vegetable. Old joke, except the context.

  “If he hasn’t destroyed the swarm, it’s because he has some use for it. And unfortunately, there’s only one use for swarms.” She sighed. “If he were blowing up our stations indiscriminately, I would be less worried. But no, he’s fighting off an invasion. This can’t be anything other than a ploy for the populace’s sympathy.”

  “He’s a mass murderer,” Brezan protested.

  “You’re a Kel,” Tseya said, “so you’d see it from a Kel point of view. The Shuos have it in for him too, not unsurprisingly. To everyone else, especially the masses who have no faction affiliation and are busy trying to avoid being noticed by people like us, he’s more like a storybook figure come to life than a threat. Hellspin Fortress was several generations ago. A lot of people simply don’t care anymore, or anyway, they don’t care enough. I mean, think about the bombing that took out Hexarch Nirai Havrekaz 373 years ago. Even if you knew about it”—Brezan shook his head—”would you get worked up about it?”

  Brezan thought it over. “I was happier before you made that point,” he said finally, “but yo
u’re right.” It made their mission all the more important. They had to stop Jedao. They had to stop the Hafn. And, as a bonus, they had to stop Jedao from stopping the Hafn and making a hero of himself.

  They ate in silence again. Brezan made himself slow down. He wasn’t used to taking meals at leisure. His oldest father, once Kel, hadn’t believed in lingering over meals. By the time Brezan was old enough to have memories, said father had retired from active service, but Kel habits died hard.

  “I know why Kel Command sent you,” Tseya said as a servitor brought small cakes to the table. The slices were festooned with slices of fruit, pale green and orange and luscious red, arranged in the shapes of flowers. “So it appears I have you at a disadvantage. I don’t believe you know anything about me. Of course, there are a lot of people in the hexarchate.”

  Brezan tried a small bite of one of the cakes. Its sweetness was balanced by the tartness of the fruits. He hoped he didn’t grow too fond of it because sooner or later he would have to go back to eating sensible Kel food. Maybe he could ask for the recipe to this one too, assuming it wasn’t a faction secret. “If you’re concerned with my ability to carry out my orders—”

  “What I’m trying to say is that we’ll work better together if you know what my stake is, and why they picked me instead of someone else.” An undercurrent shadowed Tseya’s voice, not exactly bitterness, but close.

  “Tseya,” Brezan said, wondering where this was heading, “you don’t owe me an explanation.”

  She caught his eye before he understood what was going on, and smiled. It was an impersonal smile, not a warm or pretty one, and it made him afraid. He couldn’t look away. But then, he had already known that Andan enthrallment worked like that. He just hadn’t expected her to blow the ability, whose effectiveness diminished with repeated use against a given target, so soon. Naive of him. Her eyes were still brown, not dark blue, rose-blue. Once they changed, he would be hers for as long as she could sustain the enthrallment.