Ken Liu - The Grace of Kings

“A fitting quote for a scholar of Haan,” said Kuni.

Luan smiled. “A fitting quote for any man or woman of Dara. I understood then that I had been lacking in my vision. I thought my duty was to restore Haan, but Haan is not King Cosugi or the burned-down palace or the ruins of the great estates or the dead nobles and their descendants pining for glory — these are but parts of an experiment at a way of life for the people of Haan, her true essence. When the experiment has proven to be a failure, one must be willing to try new paths, new ways of doing things.

“I could not bear to walk on my old path, a path that did not serve the people of Haan, any longer. That is why I came to you.

“For Mata Zyndu, there is no law but the use of force, no higher ideal than martial glory. And the world he created is a mirror of his mind. When King Thufi died ‘mysteriously’ on the way to Écofi, rumor had it that his last words were: ‘I should have remained a shepherd.’

“The rebellion was supposed to usher in a more just world, and yet nothing really changed.”

Kuni looked back at Luan, his heart quickening. “Do you think we are words written on a page by the gods, and that there will always be rich and poor, the powerful and the powerless, noble and commoner? Do you think that all our dreams are doomed to forever fail?”

Luan stood up and walked steadily toward the ocean. His dark figure shimmered through the dancing flames, and his voice blended with the roar of the fire. “I refuse to believe in the futility of change, because I have seen how the lowly dandelion, with time and patience, can crack the strongest paving stone. Lord Garu, will you complete the dream of Emperor Mapidéré, but avoid his mistakes? Can you unite the Islands of Dara under one crown and bring about lasting peace, while lessening the burden of the people?”

Lady Risana had quietly appeared out of the dark night to join them by the fire. Noiselessly, she sat by Kuni and put her hand on his shoulder. Her hands flickered in the firelight, and Kuni again felt a clarity of mind and a willingness to speak difficult truths. He was not perfect; he was not a god; he would accept that.

“I don’t know how to answer you, Luan. I’ve always told myself I loved the people, but how can I speak of love when I can’t even raise my own children? I’ve always told myself I’m a compassionate lord, but how can I speak of compassion when I’ve killed so many and betrayed so many others?

“I cannot say that I’m a good man, only that I’m a man who tried to do good. I like to believe that the people will remember me fondly, but I also know that the legacies of men cannot be foreseen during their lifetimes. I do not know if I’m the man who will complete the task you dream of, for that is a question that must be asked of our descendants in a thousand years.”

Luan laughed. “Lord Garu, this is why I serve you. The right path is not revealed to us by the gods or ancient sages, but must be found by ourselves through experimentation. You are uncertain, and in your uncertainty you will always seek to ask questions rather than believing yourself to possess all the answers. An ant who rides a dandelion seed will land wherever the seed lands. Men of talent will be judged in the light of the legacies of those they served.”

“ Géüdéü co loteré ma, pirufénrihua nélo . All life is an experiment,” Kuni said. “We are all swallows flying in the storm, and if we should land safely, it will be due to equal measures of luck and skill.”

In the silence, Risana began to sing an old Classical Ano song:

The Four Placid Seas are as wide as the years are long.

A wild goose flies over a pond, leaving behind a voice in the wind.

A man passes through this world, leaving behind a name.

The three of them sat quietly around the fire, until the flame burned itself out and dawn arrived.

RUI: THE SEVENTH MONTH IN THE THIRD YEAR OF THE PRINCIPATE.

For more than a year now, the reports from the airships’ surveillance flyovers of Dasu remained much the same. Gin Mazoti went on holding her strange war games instead of drilling the soldiers, and Cogo went on building new fisheries, roads, bridges, and other meaningless things that had no military use.

As far as Kindo Marana could tell, Kuni Garu was content to remain on Dasu, more like a gardener cultivating his plot than an ambitious warlord plotting military adventures.

But recently, his spies reported that Mazoti seemed to be up to something. On the southern coast of Dasu, right across the Dasu Channel from Rui, two hundred men were seen building ships. Their progress was slow, as they were shorthanded and among them there was no skilled shipwright. Marana intensified surveillance flights over the site. Mazoti seemed to be pushing her workers hard, and the airships reported witnessing workers being whipped.

A Dasu soldier even defected to Rui by stealing a tiny fishing boat and rowing over. Kindo Marana interrogated the man himself.

“Gin Mazoti is a cruel and heartless woman,” the soldier, whose name was Luwen, told Marana. “She’s ordered us to build twenty transport ships within three months. When I told her that this was impossible, she had me strung up by my thumbs and whipped until I fainted.” Luwen lifted his shirt to show the whipping scars on his back, and even Marana winced at the sight.

“She said that if her orders were not carried out, I would be executed on the last day of her three-month schedule. I had no choice but to desert.”

Marana shook his head. Just like a woman, full of wishful thinking and no understanding of the scale of things. Did she think that building a heavy transport ship was like raising a barn? Two hundred men in three months would not even finish two transport ships, let alone twenty. Kuni Garu was a fool to trust his army to this woman, and it appeared that she was capable only of venting her rage on hapless soldiers, not planning logically.

He ordered Luwen be given a good meal and be seen by a doctor.

It was midnight, and the people of the tiny village of Phada, on the northern coast of Rui, were asleep.

A great explosion woke them. As they scrambled out of their houses, they saw a sight that seemed to come out of a myth. A great crater had opened in the ground, and out of the hole, men in full armor emerged, their swords drawn.

Kindo Marana was awoken by his chatelain. The sound of alarm was everywhere.

“Sire, the Dasu army has surrounded Kriphi.”

Marana could not understand what he was being told. How could Mazoti have constructed so many ships so quickly? And even if she managed to do so, how could they have crossed the Dasu Channel unchallenged, as the channel was patrolled by Marana’s ships?

He dressed and ascended the city walls to see for himself.

“Kindo Marana!” Gin Mazoti shouted up at him in the torchlight. “Surrender. We have taken over the air base at Mount Kiji. All the other garrisons on Rui have surrendered, and you’re alone.”

SIX MONTHS EARLIER.

While Marana’s airships crisscrossed the skies of Dasu and his navy patrolled the Dasu Channel, men were hard at work below them, under the sea, beneath the seafloor.

Emperor Mapidéré’s vision of the Grand Tunnels had been long abandoned. The half-finished tunnels, deep holes into the earth that terminated at dead ends, could be found all over the islands. Over the years, weather, erosion, and flooding turned most of them into deep wells, mute relics of a bygone age.