Ken Liu - The Grace of Kings

Unmatched in speed and maneuverability, these airships evaded the hegemon’s airships and flew all over the Islands of Dara; their heavier pursuers were slower and could not stay aloft for as long.

As they flew over the cities, Dasu airships dropped leaflets denouncing Mata Zyndu for his sins: the Massacre at Dimu, the Slaughter of Prisoners at Wolf’s Paw, the Destruction of Surrendered and Peaceful Pan, the Betrayal of the Promise of Just Rewards for Rebel Leaders, the Usurpation of the Throne of Cocru, the Murder of King Thufi…

The self-righteous tone, the lurid language, the manipulative illustrations — these had troubled Kuni when Cogo Yelu first presented them.

“The facts in these accusations may be true, but why do we have to tell them as if they are stories whispered in teahouses?”

“Sire,” Cogo said, “this is the only way to get the common people to be interested.”

“I know that. But this seems… too much. We’ve done some things that we are not proud of either, and we may yet commit more sins in the future. If we denounce Mata like this, people will think us hypocrites.”

“Hypocrisy troubles only the unrighteous,” said Rin Coda.

Kuni was unpersuaded, but he always listened to counsel.

He nodded reluctantly.

Torulu Pering, who had more than a little experience fighting against airships, came up with a plan.

As one of the Dasu ships headed for Çaruza, Pering ordered Cocru airships near the capital to lay a trap. They took off from the airfield at the last possible minute and plotted an intercept course from the east. This allowed them to take advantage of the rising sun that temporarily blinded the Dasu ship’s pilot. By the time the Dasu ship realized the danger, the Cocru ships would be too close. They’d have to engage in an air fight, and the Dasu airship, lightly armed and outnumbered, would be no match.

But it was deep winter, and just as the ships were about to let loose their volleys of flaming arrows, a heavy, punishing storm of freezing rain began to fall. As the ice sheets thickened on the hulls, the weight gradually pulled all the ships down. The Dasu ship was going to have to land, even though it wasn’t being shot out of the sky.

However, Luan Zya, who had studied the weather patterns around the Islands of Dara during his extensive travels, had been prepared. He had advised Gin to equip the crew with long-handled pikes that they now used to loosen the sheets of ice as they leaned out of the gondola. The Dasu ship rose, unscathed, and for good measure, dropped a full load of pamphlets on the capital of Cocru.

Rapa, my other half, are you really going to work now against a son of Cocru?

Kuni is also a son of Cocru; as was Thufi, and countless others who have died. You have picked your favorite, and I have mine.

I never thought we’d see the day when sister works against sister among the gods.

I’m sorry, Kana. But our hearts are as varied and tumultuous as those of the mortals.

Mata Zyndu read through the pamphlet and grew angrier with each line.

Lies, all the words are lies.

When he killed, he killed only cowards and traitors and enemies. He was always forgiving and generous to his real friends.

Kuni Garu the betrayer, despite his dirty tricks and dishonorable band of hooligans, preened and paraded like a saint before the ignorant masses. Meanwhile, even Mata’s own aunt treated him as some tyrant. There was no justice in the world.

His own room was too confining. Mata strode into the courtyard to get some fresh air.

There was Mira, sitting under the shade of a sweet olive, embroidering. Clusters of pale-yellow flowers hung from the evergreen branches over her, giving off a sweet, pungent fragrance that lingered in the lungs. He walked closer to see what she was making.

It was a picture of him. The needlework was very fine. Mira had used only black threads so that the result was like an ink painting.

She did not faithfully reproduce his face or figure. His body was represented by a rough, elongated diamond, and his head an oval with two triangular patches for his eyes. Yet, with ragged lines and these bold geometric patterns, somehow Mira managed to suggest Mata Zyndu in flight, brandishing his sword while hanging from a kite. It was not a picture that hewed close to nature, with its soft curves and shades of light, but seemed to somehow supersede it, as though showing the skeleton beneath the world’s flesh. The Mata Zyndu in her picture was all spirit and energy.

“It’s very good,” he said, his anger momentarily forgotten.

“I’ve made several of these,” she said. “But none of them feels right. I can’t seem to fully capture the idea of you.”

Mata Zyndu sat down. He felt relaxed in her quiet presence, like a cool breeze in early autumn. She never talked to him about matters of state, never plotted to gain some advantage from him for one faction or another. When she expressed a longing for something, it was simple: a house, a flower she remembered seeing once, the song of birds in the morning.

He wished he could be so easily satisfied as well.

“What’s it like?” he asked idly. “To make pictures like that? It seems to require so much effort, one stitch after another. And it’s so… small.”

Mira went on embroidering, not lifting her eyes. “I imagine it’s not very different from what you do.”

Mata Zyndu laughed. “I am the hegemon of all of Dara. When I stomp my foot, thousands tremble. Comparing what I do to your idle feminine pursuits is like comparing the path of a cruben in the sea to that of an ant beneath my foot.” As he spoke, he put his boot down on an ant crawling nearby and crushed it into a smear.

Mira glanced at the ant and then looked up at him. Something seemed to change and shift inside her. When she spoke again, her tone was different.

“When you lead an army into the field, you make a picture. I use a needle; you wield a sword. I make stitches; you make bodies. I leave behind a figure on fabric; you leave behind a new arrangement of power in the world. In the end you work on a larger canvas, but I do not think the satisfaction we get from our respective work is very different.”

Mata had no answer to this. Mira’s words infuriated him, yet he could not say why. It would be easy to dismiss her as a woman unable to understand the grandeur of his vision, but he stubbornly tried to get her to see . He had always been able to make her happy, hadn’t he?

“It’s silly to compare how you feel to what I feel. I change the lives of every person in these Islands. You are confined to a woman’s narrow circle: a few feet in front of you.”

“That’s true,” Mira said. “Yet in the eyes of the gods, you and I are not much different from that ant. But I do have the consolation that my enjoyment brings no death and suffering; when I die no one will jump up and down in joy; and I remember all the names and faces that matter to me.”

Mata stood up and lifted his hand. If he used his full strength, she would be dead in a moment.

He had been in this position many times on the battlefield, poised to strike a final blow against a foe with Na-aroénna or Goremaw. Always, he had seen something in their eyes: despair, terror, defiance, disbelief.

But she stared back at him with perfect equanimity; there was not even a hint of fear.