From Ruins

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  Laniis sat on the surge of pity. "Not everyone embraces new knowledge as eagerly as you do, Knife."

  "But they have to learn," he said, and sighed. "When we win this war, huntsister, we will need to become people who can be true allies to aliens. That trust must be fostered somehow. On your side, I cannot imagine how it is accomplished. But on our side, there is no truer path to that trust than to take your shapes into ourselves and understand what it is like to be one of you."

  The way his wings were folded, so tightly... "This is really bothering you, isn't it."

  "To survive, we must change," the Knife said, bleak. "If we refuse this evolution, huntsister, we will not receive a second chance."

  "I'm sure you'll still survive!" Laniis said, surprised.

  "We might survive, but we will not become," the Knife answered. "And we will not surpass the pettiness in our spirits." He shook his head in Pelted mimicry as she watched, wide-eyed. "This is our last chance. I feel it here," he patted his chest, below his heart. "In the keel, where the wind parts to bear us up. A final chance for greatness, and a leader to lead us there, if we are brave enough, and resolute enough, to follow. But we must take the path all the way to its end."

  "Mustn't we all," Laniis murmured, still staring at him.

  "Exactly. You as well as us. Which is why I made the offer before I asked." He paused, head dipping. "Someone would have said ‘yes'? I hope?"

  She couldn't help her smile. "Someone, yes. If only to prevent an interstellar incident."

  The Knife nodded, using the Pelted gesture with all the ease that the Chatcaavan Queen had, in those communications. "That leaves only the training scenarios. Would you like help?"

  "I wouldn't mind it," Laniis said. "Let's see if you can make them even worse than they are."

  The Knife snorted, but he leaned forward as she brought the table display up for his perusal. There was no denying that she enjoyed his company, and what did that mean given that she should find no Chatcaavan male tolerable? The fact that other Chatcaavan males wanted as little to do with her as she did with them struck her as ridiculous, particularly when she realized at least part of her reaction was stung pride that she was no better than them.

  She was still chewing on that when she returned to her quarters at the end of her shift and stopped at the sight of Andrea, waiting by the door. Laniis hadn't seen much of the slaves rescued from Apex-East's world, and she was almost sure this was because they kept to themselves, and not because she was avoiding them because Andrea was friends with the Emperor and she didn't want to discuss it. She guessed she was going to have that discussion after all. Bracing herself, she stopped.

  "Can we talk?" Andrea asked, somber. "Somewhere private."

  "I have a date," Laniis started, because it was mostly true. If she showed up on Na'er's coaming, he wouldn't turn her away.

  "This won't take long."

  Laniis fought to keep her ears upright and passed Andrea into her quarters, tacitly allowing the other woman to follow. Once the door shut behind them, Laniis faced her and raised her chin, waiting.

  "I have a difficult question to ask you," Andrea said. "But I hope you'll consider answering."

  "I'm not going to forgive him," Laniis said, bristling.

  Andrea paused, colored. "Ah... that wasn't the question."

  Laniis's ears dropped. "What? You didn't corner me to guilt me into having a conversation with him?"

  "No," Andrea answered, still blushing. "I'm actually here because he respects your desire not to talk to him again, and there's something you know that he needs."

  "What could I possibly know that he needs? That he sent you to ask?" Laniis asked.

  "The Eldritch word for ‘dainty'."

  Laniis's mouth gaped.

  Andrea said nothing, waiting.

  Laniis struggled through the implications of the request, because there was nothing casual about it. "He wants to know how to say the name they gave him in the harem. In Eldritch."

  "Yes."

  "Why didn't he ask the Ambassador?"

  "I don't know," Andrea said. "I assumed he had a good reason. He had that look on his face when he asked. He was working through something. Maybe he didn't want to discuss it with the Sword, or he wasn't ready." Andrea tilted her head. "I guess you know the language?"

  "I... yes. I know it. I'm not supposed to teach it to anyone." Laniis rubbed the side of her head. "Why... I... it's not as simple as a word. That's not how their language works." She squinted at Andrea. "He sent you? To me?"

  Andrea nodded.

  "To spare me," Laniis said. "Because he doesn't want to upset me." She fought a wave of irrational rage, that he would dare to be considerate of her now after so many months of not considering her at all. "I can't... I can't do this now." The Eldritch word for ‘dainty.' What could he want with it? "I'll think about it."

  "Thank you," Andrea said. "I'll tell him." She turned to go.

  "Is that it?" Laniis demanded of her back. "Just... ‘here's his request, now I'm going to go'?"

  Andrea halted, but didn't face her. "What do you expect?"

  "That... that you tell me I should be kind to him," Laniis said. "You're his friend. You should be defending him."

  "What he did to you can't be defended," Andrea said. "And it's not my place to fight his battles for him. Or yours for you."

  Left to herself, Laniis fell onto the couch and pressed her palms to her closed eyes. None of this made sense. Why did the Emperor want to know how his harem name would have sounded in Eldritch? If he'd wanted to use it as loveplay with his Eldritch lover, why hadn't he asked the Ambassador? Maybe he'd been ashamed? Then why learn it? And why ask Laniis for it? And if he'd decided it was important enough to ask Laniis, why not ask her directly instead of sending Andrea? And why hadn't Andrea stayed to harangue her about him?

  Why were things so complicated?

  Why did he want to know?

  What was she going to do?

  "It's only a word!" she hissed to herself, and went to shower and change for a night with Na'er, during which she would think, very determinedly, about anything else.

  Lisinthir frowned at the curved projection around him as the ships proceeded through their planned movements. He could already see the mistakes he'd made; he made himself watch the results anyway, chin propped in his hand and the pitiless green and blue lights reflecting off his eyes.

  When the exercise terminated, Meryl said from the door, "It's nice to know you're not good at everything. Even if the way you're bad at this is disturbing."

  "I beg your pardon?" Lisinthir asked. He hadn't heard her enter the conference room, too intent on watching his fleet dying.

  Meryl rested her elbow on the back of one of the chairs, her other hand on her hip. "Watching you go after enemy fleets has been illuminating, we'll say."

  "I do go after them," Lisinthir said, mouth quirking.

  "Like a wolf for someone's throat," the Hinichi agreed with a slight smile. "And I would know. Are you serious about learning strategy?"

  "As I suspect a great deal of my future will involve a level of fighting I have absolutely no experience with... yes." Lisinthir glanced up at her. "Are you offering something, Captain?"

  "Some training texts," Meryl said. "If you aren't too proud to start at the beginning."

  "I am already at the beginning," Lisinthir observed. "I can hardly proceed from anywhere else."

  She nodded, resting both arms on the back of the chair and leaning on it. "All right. I'll attach some things to your account. If you let me have a look-in on your exercises I can tell you where you're weak, maybe tailor it a little to your needs."

  "And you already know how I am weak." Lisinthir leaned back in his chair, curious. "As you have apparently been watching."

  "It is my ship," she said. "When people access the simulator library, I know." She canted her head. "You probably already know your weaknesses. Do you?"

  Lisinthir glanced at the frozen
image of the final battle. "I do politics well, as I needed to know them in order to survive my youth." He thought of hunting from the back of his faithful, ugly cob, of facing sweating courtiers on the cold ground of a dueling field in autumn. "I know how to stage decisive, single battles. My tactical sense is probably sound, on the ground. In three dimensions, though, and needing the long view of strategy, I am pathetically lacking."

  "Accurate enough," Meryl agreed. "You're also too aggressive." At his cocked brow, she said, "It's possible, you know."

  "I suppose it must be," Lisinthir said. "But I have been trapped at all-or-nothing for so long I hardly remember how to throttle myself."

  "Dangerous," Meryl said. "For all of us. Especially if you're going to be in this for the long game, Lord Nase Galare." His title made him look up again. "Which you are, aren't you. If the Emperor survives, you're going with him."

  "Yes," he said, because denying it was useless. "So this would be why you are investing in my training, is it? So that I might help ensure the safety of the Alliance's coreward border." He smiled crookedly. "And here I thought you were a mere foot soldier, Captain. Or did this command come down to you from above? ‘Equip the Eldritch so that he might stabilize the political equation?'"

  "I admit I'm seizing the initiative on this one," Meryl said. "Sometimes the people at the point of the spear have the only perspective that matters. And in this case... I think you need help, and I think helping you helps us."

  Watching her though... something about the way she carried herself. Her nonchalance. Her fearlessness had a diffident quality he didn't associate with her. "Something more, though. Let me see." He tapped his lip. "I will guess that you are hoping that if I stay at the Emperor's side, I will influence him on the Alliance's behalf."

  "Do you blame me for hedging all my bets?"

  Lisinthir chuckled. "No, alet. You are doing what you must."

  She nodded. "You'll want to read those introductory texts quickly. This transit won't take long."

  "I know. Thank you."

  After she departed, Lisinthir dismissed the display. He was not surprised by Meryl's offer, nor by her critique. It didn't disturb him; he had time to learn, and he had no reason to believe he would be incapable of mastering the topic. If they survived, he might even put himself in Liolesa's way, because seeing these simulations made him wonder if this was how she'd always seen the universe: as an enormous board upon which she was watching and manipulating forces across time and space in order to achieve her ends. He didn't doubt he was here now because she had sensed that the game needed him in play.

  Perhaps what he should be asking her is how she bore the anxiety of waiting for everything to fall into place. Did she sleep at night? What were her dreams like? Had they been as fraught as the ones he'd had on the Chatcaavan throneworld?

  The console chirped.

  "Yes?" he asked.

  The Emperor. "We are in the gym. Would you join us, Ambassador?"

  "On my way," Lisinthir said, rising.

  The Emperor had been working on something, something so involving it pierced Lisinthir's dreams when they slept alongside one another. It felt molten, like glass shaped, twirling and then melting again: like beauty and danger entwined. Lisinthir had left him to it, even when it had drawn them apart for most of the day, at first because he'd wanted to give his lover all the time and space he'd needed.

  At first.

  But he knew now that the gnawing restlessness was in him, not the Emperor. You no less than the others have a path, he could almost hear Jahir saying. Do not fail to walk it out of respect for others' needs.

  And he would tell his cousin that he had never needed a reminder to walk his own path, and the words would ring hollow in him because he was yearning toward something and failing to reach it. That need had propelled him to the training simulators, to test himself and find himself lacking, but attempting to amend that lack hadn't addressed whatever emptiness was driving him.

  Arriving at the gym, he found the Emperor awaiting him in the shape of the dark dragon. The medic was leaning against the wall with folded arms. Curious, Lisinthir stopped at the threshold. "Exalted?"

  "Perfection," the Emperor said, quiet. "Come in."

  "Should I be jealous?" Lisinthir asked, smiling. "Have you been practicing with someone else?"

  The Emperor's head jerked back. "Have I offended?"

  "No," Lisinthir said, advancing. "No, beloved. I jest. Everything you can learn, you must." He glanced at Crosby. "I assume you have been?"

  "Yes," the Emperor said. "I would like you to see. For I will need your help also."

  "By all means," Lisinthir said, backing away from the center of the gym. "I would very much like to bear witness."

  The Emperor inclined his head. He seemed... nervous? No. But trembling, almost imperceptibly. What had he been practicing with the Seersa to have produced this reaction? Lisinthir settled on one of the benches.

  "Single foe," the Emperor said. "Dueling mode. Present training level."

  The gym built him a solidigraphic enemy, white again to the Emperor's black, and faceless.

  "Begin," the Emperor said, and launched himself, and as he did he blurred into the white-furred shape of a Seersa before springing into the air as a Chatcaavan, and it was as if he was leaping into that shape and through it with the fluidity of a war banner in a wind. Lisinthir stood, shocked, watching the Emperor strike the solidigraph with a human fist before flowing under its attack and scoring it with Chatcaavan claws. The shapeshift had never looked more natural and more unbelievable. Like the most lethal ballet he'd ever seen, composed of the martial arts of at least three separate species, perhaps more.

  The solidigraph flew across the room, hitting the wall beside Dellen, who didn't so much as twitch an ear.

  "Halt," the Emperor called, the foe vanished. Turning to Lisinthir, the Chatcaavan waited.

  "My God," was all Lisinthir could breathe.

  "Crosby has been teaching me to fight as he knows," the Emperor said. "And educating me on the biology of the shapes I've acquired. But there is one we dare not discuss."

  "And that you would yet learn," Lisinthir guessed.

  "I can leave," Crosby said. "If you need me to."

  Lisinthir glanced at the doctor, wondering what good the Veil would be in the future. What good it did anyone who met him in particular, given what he was. Which is when he felt the rightness of being here now, felt it filling the empty spaces. "No, you may remain. While I am not unique among my kind, my particular mix of talents most probably is. You will not see another like me again." He smiled. "Go on, then, Exalted. Rush me."

  "I will use what I know now against you," the Emperor said, uncertain.

  "You won't hit me," Lisinthir said. And grinned. "And no, that's not a challenge, but a promise."

  The Emperor huffed. "Is that so."

  "Try me," Lisinthir said, and it was as much love as defiance.

  For several heartbeats, they held one another's gaze. The Emperor struck-

  -stopped short of Lisinthir's breast, held there by the Eldritch's will. Seizing control of his body had been easier than Lisinthir had expected; maintaining that control wasn't costing him much either. He waited, standing very still, and the air between them seemed to vibrate with the power that none of them could see.

  Crosby surprised them both by appearing at their elbows. "What are you doing?"

  "I am in his mind, commanding his body not to move." Lisinthir paused. "I will cease now, Exalted."

  When he let go, the Emperor inhaled and raised his hands, staring at them. Twisted them to look at their backs, then raised his head. "You could not always do this, or you would have won our encounters on the throneworld when first we met. You mentioned at the temple... this is something new?"

  Lisinthir nodded. "I am not certain of it yet, either, so I do not think to rely on it. And... it does not satisfy the same needs. When I fight with my body..." He paused, smiled faintly
. "It's different."

  "You can do this to anyone?" Crosby asked, frowning.

  "So far as I know."

  "Can it be broken?" the Emperor asked. "This hold you have on a person's mind."

  "I have not seen it done," Lisinthir said. "But I would never stake my life on the assumption that it is impossible."

  "Wise," the Emperor said. "Let me try again."

  There was a light in the Chatcaavan's eye that Lisinthir had seen too rarely of late: that spike of curiosity, the need to test himself. It made him feel better about accepting, when his only other memory of experimenting with this ability had been with Jahir, a situation made fraught by his cousin's repugnance for the mind-talents. "Very well. I will leave you a hand free so you can signal when you wish to be released."

  The Emperor chuckled. "Cocky, Perfection."

  "This not being a fair fight, I believe I can be indulgent."

  Again, the Emperor lunged for him, and Lisinthir caught him up. The drake signaled, and Lisinthir let him go. Another tiresome repetition of the same procedure he'd undertaken with Jahir... how long would it take for the Emperor to tire of the exercise? Perhaps Lisinthir would learn something about his own limitations: surely staying the hand of an aggressive dragon would be more work than the same attempt on his retiring cousin. He bound the Emperor again, and was waiting for the hand signal, when his mental grip went slippery, as if he'd grasped the hilt of a sword with a sweaty palm. Startled, he tried to stabilize his hold only to find himself flat on his back on the ground. The Emperor was straddling him in the shape of a Seersa, tail whisking behind him.

  "Are you... are you wagging your tail?" Lisinthir asked, incredulous.

  "Am I?" the Emperor said. He craned his head over his shoulder, then said to Crosby, "Is this a species instinct?"

  "Some of us have it," Crosby said. "I admit, I don't. But I doubt anyone's going to argue with you if you want to wag yours."

  "How did you do that?" Lisinthir demanded.

  "Are you displeased your trick can be conquered so easily?" the Emperor asked, grinning.