Юн Ли - Raven Stratagem

“They left something out of the interrogation files Command sent you,” Anien said once they were alone. “We’ve been trying not to let it get out.”

“Do tell,” Kujen said.

“I don’t have video to show you,” Anien said, “and if you mention this to anyone, I’ll have to deny that I ever said anything, Nirai-zho. But Jedao didn’t start off begging to be shot. He didn’t seem to understand what had happened. He—he kept asking what had happened to his soldiers. Asking if they were all right. It was only after he understood what he’d done that he started to beg.”

All this time she hadn’t stopped playing with the cards.

“You’re worried about him,” Kujen said. Interesting change from the overwhelming contingent of Kel who wanted Jedao’s entrails cut into little writhing pieces and the conspiracy theorists who thought the Lanterners had devised a brainwashing ray. Kujen happened to know that there weren’t useful shortcuts when it came to brainwashing.

“Ignore the blame-mongers, Nirai-zho,” Anien said. “We promoted Jedao too fast and pushed him too hard, and he cracked.” Her mouth twitched. “He was a great suicide hawk. Indistinguishable from the real thing.”

She was getting distracted. He had to convince her to do what he wanted. “About the black cradle,” Kujen said. “Are you certain? I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to repair someone that badly broken.”

Anien gave Liyeng a considering look. “How good are you at tactics, Nirai-zho?”

“The real kind, not game theory with perfectly rational actors? Sort of not,” Kujen said. Jedao had always been annoyingly nice about it no matter how much Kujen needled him about his math difficulties. “I solve equations, not guns.”

“He’s good enough for the experiment to be worth attempting,” she said flatly. “Who knows? He might become a useful weapon again.”

“I only talked to him in passing before Hellspin Fortress, once or twice,” Kujen lied. “What was he like before he lost his mind?”

“Other than his inordinate fox-like love for games and his inordinate hawk-like love for guns? Talkative. Brave. Occasionally funny. His soldiers loved him. Or they did, until, well.”

She cut the deck, then showed him the top card. The Deuce of Gears. “Stupid magic trick,” she said. Kujen refrained from mentioning that he had seen most of Jedao’s repertoire. “He showed me how to do a bunch of them a few years ago. Honestly, Nirai-zho, I don’t know what to tell you to look for. No one saw it coming. I would have suspected myself a traitor before I suspected him.”

Kujen heard what she wasn’t saying. “I’ll do my best for him, Anien.”

He could have gotten rid of her if it looked like she was going to be an obstacle, but this way was easier, and he was looking forward to taking Jedao apart.

KUJEN SHOULD HAVE known that his life would be filled with inconveniences after High General Kel Shiang was appointed his new liaison. High General Anien had died of a rare cancer, leaving him her collection of playing cards. A strange thing to offer someone who technically didn’t have hands.

Shiang was a tall, tawny woman with a broad frame. The forcefulness of her movements made him wonder if the facility was going to thunder itself into rubble around her. Kujen’s current anchor, a shorter manform named Uwo, found this intimidating. Kujen couldn’t blame them, but it was a bit of a distraction.

Uwo had brought Shiang to the lab where Jedao was pinned. The room was drab except for a single wall devoted to a one-per-minute cycle of riotously colorful photographs of flowers. Forsythias, cosmos, moss roses, azaleas, everything. Flowers were an innocuous way of giving Jedao access to color when they switched on the portal that could, for short periods, give him a limited window into the world.

“He’s in here, Nirai-zho?” Shiang asked, looking around at the terminals with their graphs and readouts. One of them was still set to a card game.

“Not precisely,” Kujen said, “but this is the single point of access we’ve allowed him. I didn’t deem it wise to give him an anchor of his own without Kel Command’s approval.”

“I’m authorized to make that determination.”

“Of course,” Kujen murmured. “Do you wish to talk to him?”

Shiang eyed him. “I did read your reports, but is he stable?”

What was Jedao going to do without a body, put nails through her eyes? “As stable as anyone is,” Kujen said. “You came all this way, you might as well see for yourself. I should warn you that the time windows are dependent on calendrical mechanics—the equations were in Appendix 5—so you’ll have twenty-three minutes this session if we start now.”

“Let’s do this, then.”

Uwo flipped the switch. A chime sounded. A shadow rippled through the room. Nine candle-yellow eyes stared at them through a crack of black-silver. Then the shadow faded, and the eyes with them.

“Jedao?” Shiang said, unmoved by the phenomenon.

“I apologize for being unable to salute, sir,” Jedao said, that same easy baritone with its drawl. It sounded as though he stood in the room facing them, except he’d also have to be invisible. “What do you require of me?”

“I’m here to evaluate your recovery,” she said. “Nirai-zho tells me you’ve given no explanation for your behavior at Hellspin Fortress.”

“I have none, sir.”

“Do you remember what happened?” She was frowning at Uwo, as though Kujen’s anchor should have an answer for her.

Jedao hesitated. “I remember it in pieces, sir. The pieces aren’t in order. They showed me some of the videos, including—” His voice wavered. “Including when I shot Colonel Gized. I don’t—I don’t understand why I would want to do that. I can’t believe she’s gone.”

“Can the Rahal get anything out of him now?” Shiang asked Kujen.

“Unfortunately, that’s impossible,” Kujen said. It had, in fact, been one of the design parameters for the black cradle. Not that Shiang was ever going to learn that from him. “Neither of us sleeps. A wolf scrying has no access.”

Shiang swore under her breath, then said, “What do you think I hope to accomplish here, Jedao?”

“I imagine you’re here to render judgment, sir. I’m not sure why I’m being retained as a revenant, however. There must have been a court-martial, but I can’t remember any of it. I realize I killed a great many, including my own people. I am prepared for your sentence.”

“We kept you alive”—Shiang’s nostrils flared—“because Kel Command needs tacticians of your caliber, because you may yet ‘serve’ in an experimental capacity, and because the heptarchate continues to face many threats.”

Uwo coughed. “About that.” This would have gone better if Shiang had read the report as she had claimed.

Shiang glared at Uwo. “You have something to say, Nirai-zho?”

Kujen decided that he needed to go back to picking more physically intimidating anchors. This one was excellent in all other regards. They had marvelous conversations about homological conjectures over breakfast, but even bleed-through hadn’t overcome Uwo’s naturally retiring demeanor.

“Sir,” Jedao said, “I—I would recommend against using me for that purpose. I have difficulty with tactical simulations now. I don’t have any reason to believe that things would be any better in the field.”

“That must be humbling for you to admit, given your former stature,” Shiang said.

Jedao sounded puzzled. “I wish to serve, sir, but it’s important that you have an accurate assessment of my capabilities.”

“And if I decided that the Kel would best be served by your permanent death?”