CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“A D-per,” Sediryl repeated, fighting the sudden acceleration of her heart. “Here?”

“Sort of,” Maia replied. “He’s only on the network part of the time. The rest of the time, Kamaney’s got him trapped in a datawand.”

Vasiht’h saved Sediryl the trouble of asking the question. “Wait, how is that possible? You can trap a D-per? I thought you lived everywhere the network reached.”

“Can she trap you?” Sediryl added.

Maia’s sigh sounded tired and worried. Sediryl wished she could see her friend’s face. “You remember when I told you about our history, arii? About how we used to serve indentured contracts when we were first created?”

“Yes?”

“They had to have a way to enforce that indenture,” Maia said. “So, yes. D-pers can be trapped, Vasiht’h-alet. Kamaney is using the protocols that were created to limit our abilities. Which, I might add, are no longer available because they’ve been judged inhumane.”

“A form of slavery,” Sediryl guessed.

“Yes.”

“Why did they even have that to begin with?” Vasiht’h asked, paws pressed into the carpet in a way Sediryl found disturbing. Something about the way his toes were spread? “They made you and immediately chained you down?”

“They didn’t know what they were making,” Maia said. “And they worried that we might overrun the system. The network that connects the worlds of the Alliance makes the Alliance possible, alet. Until they were certain we wouldn’t pose a danger to it they didn’t want us running loose without any way to stop us.”

“So, this D-per of Kamaney’s,” Sediryl said, steering the conversation back to the point. “A potential ally?”

“That’s... not an easy question to answer.” Maia sounded pained. “The particular D-per Kamaney’s got is a convict.”

“There are D-per criminals?” Vasiht’h asked, ears sagging.

“Only one. This one. And it’s not so much Crispin’s fault as there was an... unfortunate incident.”

“Just give us the whole story at once,” Sediryl said. She rubbed her temple.

“Crispin was the first D-per to be assigned to a Fleet ship. A survey vessel, small crew. Lots of long distance missions, few stops back at civilization. And the captain of that ship...” Maia paused, sighed. “The captain of that ship became obsessed with him, and died trying to convert himself into a digital person so he could ‘be with’ Crispin.”

Even Sediryl couldn’t find a flippant enough reply to divert the horror of that.

“The court that convicted him said Crispin should have stopped him,” Maia said heavily. “But the man was his commanding officer. He was trapped between following his captain’s orders—and allowing him to suicide—or stopping him, and then he would have been up on an entirely separate charge.”

“Mutiny?” Sediryl guessed.

“Right.”

“That’s insane!” Vasiht’h exclaimed. “How can that possibly have been this D-per’s fault? Did he do anything to encourage the behavior?”

“The records show nothing like that,” Maia said. “And we have them in full, every conversation. They’re still available if you dig in the right databases. But Crispin… we assumed he suicided too, because he vanished.”

“D-pers can suicide?” Vasiht’h said, eyes wide.

“How’d he end up here?” Sediryl asked.

“Yes. And I don’t know. All I do know is that Kamaney’s got his reins. He’s allowed limited access at specific times; those rush ‘uploads’ I kept dodging are him flooding the network after release. He executes whatever commands she’s given him, and then she throttles him again.”

“And by throttle you mean… remove him from the base,” Sediryl said, trying and failing to visualize.

“Sort of. His higher functions—what you would call his personality—are barred from expression. The rest of him remains distributed throughout the system network, and by system here I mean the solar system. The ships, the base, the sensor platforms, all of that. Those lower level functions are still beating away, sort of like your heart does while you’re in a coma. When he wakes up he can access the records of what went on while he was ‘down’, but he can’t see it realtime. Which is why I’m using these speakers. He’s throttled now, and I can munge the sensor data while he’s not looking so that when he does, there’s nothing to see.”

“But back to the part where he’s working with a pirate?” Vasiht’h said. “Why isn’t he on our side?”

“Why would he be if Fleet convicted him of a crime he didn’t commit?” Sediryl murmured.

“Because even someone falsely accused of a crime can decide that consorting with furriers and slavers is a bridge too far?”

“Vasiht’h’s right,” Maia said, low. “I don’t think Crispin wants to be here. But what we have to remember is that it doesn’t matter. Kamaney dictates what he can and can’t do. If he finds out about me, he might feel remorse about wiping my localcopy but he won’t hesitate either.”

“Can we take these controls away from her?” Sediryl asked.

“I don’t know,” Maia said, and for the first time in their aquaintance she sounded miserable. “Most indentures are locked to a specific individual’s bio-signature, and their death doesn’t result in release. The indenture just freezes until the next person on the allowed permissions list comes along and takes over. It might be keyed generically to whomever’s got the datawand. Or it might be specific to Kamaney, at which point it’ll default to checking for authorizations.”

“So if we don’t get onto that list…”

“Then Crispin’s stuck forever, or at least until we can find someone with a master code. For that we’d need a link back to the Alliance.”

“Which we don’t have,” Sediryl muttered.

“On the bright side,” Maia said, “And there is one—he’s the source of the protective shield that kept the gun from killing Kamaney, Sediryl. That means he can only protect her in the parts of the base he has access to.”

“And where doesn’t he have access?” Vasiht’h asked.

“Her bedroom and her bathroom.”

A long pause. Vasiht’h said, caustic, “That’s a bright side?”

“No,” Sediryl said. “Maia’s right. It’s far better than discovering she doesn’t have any weaknesses at all.” She sighed and pulled at her pinned hair, bringing the braids down. “You’re still certain you can get information out to the Empire.”

“Yes.”

“And Kamaney is on her flagship, and the D-per locked.”

“Yes.”

“Then you can ask the Queen about a contact in the palace…?”

A faint, tired smile could be heard in the reply. “Already on it, arii.”

The tingling never left her. She slept to escape it but it chased her into dreams, where she flowed from shape to shape without the intervention of her Chatcaavan form. She became in those dreams everyspecies, until their flaws and virtues mingled and she lost cohesion, and she woke panting and terrified. She had not yet found herself partially Changed, but she dreaded the possibility. Could she become trapped between shapes? Perhaps this was a function of too frequent Touches? It would subside, surely. It had to.

Knowing that the Change was responsible for her current troubles should have made the prospect of learning more patterns and becoming more aliens distressing, and it did. Sometimes. Other times she thirsted for the experience of those unlike selves, as if she was dying. Chatcaava did not live as long as Eldritch, but they did live longer than the Pelted. Could she be several people in that draconic lifetime? Experience the life of a Phoenix, and then decide to be human for a decade or two?

What was she becoming?

She dreaded her newest keeper’s summons, and craved it. How jealous her former Chatcaavan masters would have been to witness how poor their attempts at mastery had been, in comparison with this.

“Milady?”

The title, reminding her powerfully of the Ambassador, jerked her head from her pillow where she’d rested it in the futile hope that she could nap. “Yes? You come again.”

“I do. Alet, we have an open channel to the Empire, but not the Alliance. Is there someone in the Empire we can talk to about the pirates’ intentions? Someone who would help our cause?”

Now, she thought, closing her eyes. Now it was his time. “Yes. The males who maintain the palace… they use their computer access to order supplies, food, to send messages for the males they are serving. They are our allies, and among them you should ask for Oviin.”

“Oviin.”

“Of palace maintenance. He was the one who delivered my message to the Ambassador and Emperor when the Twelveworld Lord was preparing to send me away.”

“I understand, milady. Thank you.”

“It is why we are here.”

“It is.” A pause. “Sediryl wants me to ask if there’s anything we can do for you.”

Her… sister. She would ask. The Queen smiled faintly. “Tell her…”

“Yes?”

What? ‘Rescue me?’ Why was she relying on someone else? If Sediryl’s plan had worked, then the pirate must still consider her an ally, not a product. No, not an ally. As the Eldritch’s pretty kept thing. Something owned, but by an ally. “Tell her I’m coming,” the Queen said, and pushed herself off the bed. She drew on the wing silks and pinned the cloth to her hips, ignoring the clumsiness of her fingers, and then padded to the door. One pause to assess herself, and to gather her courage, and she stepped through.

Her guards spun to face her.

“I go to see the Eldritch, who is also the Admiral’s companion,” the Queen said. “The Admiral said I was not to go elsewhere without escort to my destination. Will you please follow me there?”

“Follow you… across the hall?” the first guard said. He sounded confused by her courtesy—perhaps he was used to being ordered.

“Please. I would not wish to fail in my adherence to the Admiral’s wishes.”

“Smart of you,” the second guard muttered. Then grinned. “So, you want to take her all the way over, Mattingly, or should I?”

The first guard snorted. “You hating exercise so much, why don’t I do the honors.” He gestured grandly. “After you.”

The Chatcaavan followed him across the hall, where the guards at the Eldritch’s doors had been watching with incredulity. Her guard stopped and said, “Here’s the Chatcaavan, to see the Eldritch.”

The guard at Sediryl’s door rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Go on.”

She nodded to her escort and said, “Thank you,” before passing through the door and into the antechamber, where the Eldritch, the Glaseah, and another alien were all awaiting her.

“It worked,” Sediryl said, wide-eyed.

“I think,” the Queen said, “I should stay here.” And stumbled. Someone caught her—the alien, she thought, and how had he moved so quickly? His skin trembled under hers, promising knowledge, and the burn in her intensified. She hissed and hid her face against a furry shoulder, seeking comfort and finding instead sibilant promises, beckoning.

“What’s wrong?” The Eldritch, sounding worried. “Sister mine?” A hesitant touch on her shoulder, not as energizing as the alien’s who held her. “Do you need a healer?”

“I don’t know.” The Queen shivered. “I have never Touched so many people, and now I feel strange in my own skin. But… I do not think I wish to be alone.”

“Kamaney’s gone off-base,” said the voice that had visited the Queen in her chamber. “I don’t see why anyone’s going to care where her guests are as long as they don’t try to leave the bloc.”

“Right,” Sediryl said. “Qora-alet, would you help the Queen to the sofa?”

“Pardon me,” the alien said to her, and lifted her as if she weighed nothing. She felt like she weighed nothing. As he deposited her on the couch, she said, “You were going to send a message to Oviin?”

“Yes,” the Eldritch said. “So we’re glad you’re here to help. We need to make sure he trusts the data source. Can you give us something to pass along to him that’ll help?”

“Yes,” she said. “Tell him this is my creased lily.”

“Sound appropriately code-wordish,” the disembodied female voice opined.

“All we can do is try,” the Eldritch said firmly. “So let’s get together everything we know and make sure it gets to this Oviin. If he can pass it on to my cousin and his allies…”

“Can we get information back?” the Glaseah asked, sounding pained. “I’d… I’d like to know. One way or the other. About Jahir.”

“We’ll ask.”

The Queen still felt wrong in her skin, but at least she would not die alone, if die she did. As the aliens decided what to include in their first message, she thought about asking them to tell the Ambassador and the Emperor that she loved them, in case she did not live through this. But then… they knew already. She closed her eyes and relaxed, until the conversation became a murmur that followed her into a fevered dream of shapes.

It became routine: the guards brought Jahir from the interior room, fed, watered, and prepared him, and hung him on the wall for the day. After serving as decorative tapestry, he was taken down, remanded to Oviin for washing and care, and returned to the interior room to sleep before beginning the routine anew. He’d become accustomed to sleeping in the large and empty room, rolled in his blanket, conserving his strength in silence.

The Usurper entering this haven did not feel like a violation, but rather an opportunity. Jahir watched him hesitate at the door, silhouetted by the moonlight in the bathroom behind him. Willed him to enter, but carefully so as not to inadvertently exert his talent. He was already using up too much energy surviving. Besides, if something had prompted the Usurper to seek him, best he come of his own accord, propelled by whatever froth of anxiety and unease might be fomenting unassisted.

These new abilities were fraught, particularly twined with his healer’s vow and the roquelaure’s cruel chains.

At last, the Usurper forged into the room and stopped before him. “You. Alien.”

Jahir looked up at him.

“The Surgeon claims you are underfed. Is your attendant neglecting you?”

“No,” Jahir said.

“Your guards, then. They are supposed to be feeding you during the day.”

“Not them, either.”

The Usurper hissed. “What then? Are you diseased? You are not to die until I am ready to dispose of you.”

“I would prefer not to die at all,” Jahir said. And amended, “Before time, anyway.”

The Usurper’s eyes narrowed. “You do not seem fearful enough to me.”

“Fearful… that you will kill me?” Jahir considered his reply, and again something whispered through him, used his mouth. “If I die here, it will not be at your hand.”

“Your bravado will not serve you, alien. If I decide to kill you, you will die.”

“But you are not like other males,” Jahir said. “And so I don’t think you’ll kill me. You don’t even like to touch me.”

“I find touch disagreeable.” The Usurper folded his arms. “It confounds me that so many males lose themselves in distractions of the flesh. You ensnared the former Emperor that way, but that tactic will not work on me.”

“No,” Jahir agreed, wondering. The longer the Chatcaavan stayed, the more he tinted the air around him with his emotional state: with its rigidity, which manifested as a compact fog shot through with glinting gray lines that occasionally pulsed a red bead of agitation or contempt.

“The only proper challenges are the challenges of the intellect,” the Usurper continued, beginning to pace. “And yet so many males fail to see this is a truer test of Fitness than the sordid games they insist on playing with their claws and teeth.”

“You have shown them their error,” Jahir said, holding very still. So hard not to be a healer. But had he not come to fight a war? “Have you not ascended to the highest height a Chatcaavan may? Your philosophy has prevailed.”

“But this is only the beginning,” the Usurper said. “I may sit on the Emperor’s pillow but to ensure that my beliefs spread I must force them on others. This is my most important task. It is why I have left Second to the tiresome work of dealing with this war.”

“The war is likely to be costly.”

The Usurper waved a hand. “And? I expect it to be.”

Surprised, Jahir said, “You do?”

“Of course. It is the only way to remove the males who are most committed to the concept of power as an expression of physical might. They are the ones with wealth, with ships, with the lusts that need slaking. The very males who threaten my hold on the throne are the ones most likely to be at the forefront of the war with the freaks and—if the alien military is as competent as you claim—they will be the ones who die there. If this plan works, I solve one of my problems immediately.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then I will have to bomb the lords’ worlds,” the Usurper said. “Which would be a waste, as most of them have old and useful planets, with complacent and productive populaces. But planets can be retrieved after orbital bombardment with enough time, while there are few better ways to solve the problem of intractable would-be leaders.”

Jahir’s mouth dried. “I see.”

“Either way, I achieve my objective,” the Usurper said. He cocked his head. “Maybe I should be thanking you. It would only be fair. You helped bring about my predecessor’s downfall, which opened the way for my coup.”

“I would be glad to accept your gratitude in the form of my freedom.”

The Usurper hissed a laugh. “Yes, I thought you would say something you thought witty. No, I am not minded to give you your freedom. If you were free, Ambassador, you might help your allies in the war, and we can’t have that.”

“I thought your aim was to see your lords and naval admirals die?”

“Yes. But I am not served by losing the war, either. I don’t plan to become subject to the sovereignty of animals.” The Usurper’s nostrils flared. “No, you are good where you are, Ambassador, and not at large where you might confound my plans. And when Second is done razing the Alliance, I will give you to him for a gift. You will serve your final purpose under his claws.” He sneered. “You would like that, yes? Being one of these creatures who lusts for the transitory pleasures of the body. You must miss straddling a Chatcaavan master.”

To that, Jahir said nothing.

“Mmm. Yes. That is best, I think. And for that, you must live.” The Usurper pointed at him. “Follow the Surgeon’s instructions exactly.”

“As I said, I have no desire to die yet.”

“Strange alien,” the Usurper said. “To nurture hope, here.” He turned, tail lashing once. “Sleep now. Stop wasting away.”

But Jahir didn’t sleep. He stayed curled in his blanket, trembling, wondering why the Pattern had pushed him here. Had the God and Lady intended him to use the training he’d received in the Alliance to influence the Usurper’s character? The more he listened, the more he thought it improbable that he might somehow redeem the Usurper, as Lisinthir had redeemed a different Emperor.

Yet to be a healer who destroyed! He remembered the feel of sunlight on his shoulders, falling like a shawl in the pattern of leafshadow, and his cousin’s somber question about the just use of their talents. Of whether it was moral to kill with the mind-talent. When Lisinthir had advanced the question to him, all his doubts had been concentrated on the method of the hypothetical killing: with mind-talent, with sword, barbaric or with dignity. None of his thoughts had revolved around the very real probability that he didn’t know whether the killing would help. Because if he slew the Usurper—if he did it with talk alone, or with his mind if he could decide how—what then? Would the Alliance be better served by an Empire in turmoil? Would there even be turmoil, or would the transition happen with the swiftness of a viper’s strike? And place in power a male even more aggressive than the Usurper?

He had told Lisinthir they should beware arrogation of the rights of the God and Goddess to themselves. What he’d failed to understand was the reason for doing so: because he lacked their omniscience.

Or was that sophistry intended to excuse him from the burden of action?

Jahir rested his brow on his fist, felt the weight of his racked body sag against the unyielding floor. Though he knew it to be ill-advised, though the roquelaure immediately began its complaints, he let his mind sink through the stone, expand outward, downward. He suffused the air, trailed through stairwells, touched the minds of the Chatcaava in the tower. They did not feel any more alien to him than the people he’d worked with in his xenotherapy practice. Most of them had Oviin’s self-effacing auras. Some had jagged presences that radiated far enough to brush the minds of other Chatcaava near them: lords and courtiers. One of them was familiar: the avarice of the Twelveworld Lord, bubbling with ambition and energy.

The Usurper’s he located nearby, in the study, pulsing like a heart into those thin traces, like circuits.

Jahir drew back when his stomach began cramping, setting his palm on it and wincing. Focusing on the bare ceiling, he asked the God and Lady what They needed, because he was having no luck guessing.

The following day Jahir stared at the map—had ample time to stare at the map because the Usurper entertained no guests. This time, though, as the Chatcaavan worked Jahir fought his fatigue to eavesdrop on the messages he read and wrote and the reports he compiled and examined. Most of them involved intelligence on the strength of his allies, but not just in ships: in worlds, and wealth, even in progeny. Each of these notables was being examined for his utility to the new order and separated onto different lists based on whether the Usurper thought they should be killed or could be used. His activity was unsurprising, given his aims, but Jahir found it disturbing to stay in his mind, even at the surface level that gave him access to his immediate and conscious processes. The fleets on the map crept closer, but the Usurper ignored or de-prioritized information on their disposition. When such data appeared it was dismissed with the reflexive thought: “Second’s problem.”

One too many of these thoughts spurred Jahir to finally speak into that silence. “Do you plan to have Second killed as well? By this war?”

“What?” The Usurper looked up, scowled.

“You said that males who believed in the old expressions of power must die or be brought to heel,” Jahir said. “Is Second one of the former or the latter?”

For a long moment the Usurper didn’t answer, and Jahir felt him struggling to find some context for an answer. At last, he said, “Second is a huntbrother.”

“You do not believe in huntbrothers,” Jahir said, because no emotional resonance attached to the concept in the Chatcaavan’s mind. “Nor should you, given the hunt’s association with physical prowess.”

“The intellect can also hunt,” the Usurper said dismissively.

“Puzzles are not hunts,” Jahir answered, remembering Lisinthir’s hands on him, the thrill communicated through palms and fingers. “They should not incite baser emotions.”

Again a pause. “True.” The Usurper frowned at him. “Second is useful to me.” A lightening of internal pressures as he latched onto this explanation. “So long as I have these more barbaric males to manage, Second is a useful bridge. He speaks their language, though he understands more rarified pursuits.”

“But does he speak their language? Or has he learned yours?”

The Usurper’s fingers clenched on the desk. “You are attempting to foster doubt again. You forget I know Second’s motivations. He cannot betray me because I know what he desires.”

“Surely the ultimate power is a throne.”

“If he wants it he will come back here for it,” the Usurper said, with a sound in his head like a lock clicking closed. “And I will kill him then. But he does not want a throne. He wants to kill the freaks. And fortunately there are a great many of you.”

“You can never know all a person’s motivations,” Jahir said, quiet. “The one that seems to have primacy may fall back in favor of a different one if the situation merits.”

“People are not that complicated, alien.”

“People are ultimately complicated,” Jahir replied. “Beautifully so. And if you think you can predict them by reducing them to a series of mechanical inputs and outputs, you will fail.”

“I have not failed yet—”

“You have never been tested on this level before.” The Chatcaavan raised his head, eyes burning, and Jahir said to him, “Maybe you should step down, before you misstep. A fall from this height will kill you, and a great many other people with you.”

The Usurper jerked to his feet and stalked out of the room, tail and wings stiff. He returned with a guard and pointed at Jahir. “Put the gag on him.” As the guard approached, the Usurper said, “When I want your opinions, freak… I will ask for them.” Seating himself again behind the desk, the Usurper added, “Don’t take it out until he’s done for the day. I’ve had enough distractions.”

By the time the guards delivered Jahir to the bathing chamber he needed help to keep his feet. Oviin held out his arms for him, exuding his fears like a poison. “Help me lay him on the tile, please. Thank you. Your assistance is no longer necessary.” The extra auras withdrew. The gag twitched in Jahir’s mouth as the straps moved, and Oviin was pushing his jaw down. “Gently,” the Chatcaavan whispered. “Your mouth is bloody.”

Prophet, bloody, bloody-mouthed prophet

The guards hadn’t been gentle pushing it in. He was glad to be quit of it, found himself too mazed to lift his head. Oviin murmured, “The Surgeon sent me this…” A hiss against his arm, and the cravings began to subside. “But you should still eat.”

With the food, Oviin fed him thoughts, threaded through their fingers, amid the flatbread and meat and strangely-colored vegetables. /I have received word back from the Emperor. Second’s departure does not give them enough opportunity… the forces arrayed against them are still too strong, with the Worldlord’s fleet arriving./

/So if the Worldlord’s fleet was to leave?/

/Or if some other number could be convinced to go,/ Oviin said. /But I don’t know how it could be done. This war… these males have been hungering for this war for years./

Between the injection and the meal, Jahir began to feel less unsteady. /We will have to pray for an opportunity. Here… the map today. And this, also—/ What little he had gleaned from listening to the Usurper’s work, he shared, along with his conversation the previous night. /He is not concerned about the casualties of the war we face./

/No./ Oviin’s eyes were wide. /But he means to kill the rest of us with our lords if the aliens do not kill enough of them? Living Air!/

/He is…/ Jahir trailed off, looking for a word.

/He is a Chatcaavan male, in the end,/ Oviin interrupted, putting the tray away. /The message also included a personal note from someone calling you ‘cousin’./

Jahir swallowed. /And it said?/

/’How do we know what we deserve?’/

Jahir laughed under his breath. Trust Lisinthir to begin a philosophical discussion across parsecs. Except he would not needlessly endanger the innocents passing these messages by making them too long, so… Lisinthir needed this information, from the man he’d called the closest thing he had to a confessor. Jahir said, /Tell him…/ And paused to collect his thoughts, since it behooved him not to impose his ramblings on Oviin’s eidetic memory. /Tell him that it is not for us to know if we are deserving, only to act in a way that befits someone who would be./

/As someone Fitting,/ Oviin murmured.

/Yes./

Oviin inclined his head. “Your bath is ready, Ambassador.”

The Usurper ignored him the following day and entertained no other guests. Jahir watched the fleet movements and listened to the Chatcaavan’s surface thoughts as he read more mail and made more decisions—all very logical, those decisions, as if the Usurper was sorting the scattered puzzle of the Empire into edge pieces and color groups, the better to fit them into place as efficiently as possible. He did not gag Jahir, and Jahir was too grateful for the reprieve to use his freedom. As it was, eating took care so as not to aggravate the tender spots on his tongue and the insides of his cheeks.

As he waited through the interminable day, he turned Lisinthir’s question in his mind. It was related to his own about right action and his own role here. Maybe a galactic crisis could not help but inspire such existential questions: when the cost of inaction—or wrong action—was so high, how could one not wonder how to choose the right course?

The answer he’d sent his cousin still felt correct. But the question remained: how did one know how to be deserving?

With every breath in me, I will serve life, the catechism whispered.

First, do no harm, his vow added.

And yet, a healer destroyed disease. And if salvation transformed a soul, then it necessarily ended the life of the person who had been evil. Didn’t it?

Oviin was waiting when the guards brought him, standing with every evidence of patient serenity… but his aura was a blaze of pale fire and sparks of curiosity and joy. The moment they were alone, the Chatcaavan clasped his arms and said, /Ambassador! Can you hear me?/

/Yes… what has happened?/

/I have received a new message, Ambassador. From the Queen! She is alive!/

/What??/

/From a completely different communication channel,/ Oviin said. /I do not recognize how it arrived./ He set out the tray and frowned at Jahir. “You are chewing very slowly. Are you ill?”

“No,” Jahir said. “My mouth is sore, that is all.”

The Chatcaavan scowled, wings shifting on his back. “Perhaps the Surgeon can recommend a salve. This one will speak to him.” Privately, he continued, /So much new information, Ambassador! The Queen has made contact with the Twelveworld Lord’s pirates and discovered they are lying to him! They have a much larger force than they are using to aid us, a very large force. And they are contemplating whether to use it against us, or against your Alliance! They also say I am to tell you that your cousin is among them, and attempting to work toward your aims. And she says that you’re to tell your cousin, your other cousin, that she has his partner in her keeping, that they are all working together and hope to arrive at some useful action soon. But that any information we might relay to them would be useful. Also that we are to tell your friends in the Alliance all this because they cannot reach the Alliance from where they are./

Jahir set what he was eating down and pressed his palms flat to the ground, bending. He felt Oviin’s hand skate over his shoulder, pause there.

/Ambassador!/

“No,” Jahir whispered. “No, Oviin-alet, it’s all right.” And then his chest hitched and he found himself crying, for hope in darkest places. Vasiht’h was alive. Sediryl lived. Lisinthir’s beloved was with him. And they had a view now into a piece of the war they hadn’t yet. Wiping his face he composed himself. /You said ‘a very large force,’ alet. Did they say how large?/

/They have sent exact numbers,/ Oviin said, pressing another piece of meat on him. /The total pirate force is nearly three hundred ships strong, and many of them are large warships they have stolen from the Alliance./

/Three hundred!/

Oviin offered him a bowl of water. /Yes. It is not a large enough fleet to take on the Chatcaavan navy, but it is more than large enough for the sort of raiding pirates must do. Your allies claim that this pirate wants to establish her own nation./

/So there is no chance that if my cousin convinced the pirates to attack Apex-East, they would accomplish anything./

/No,/ Oviin said. /At least, I do not believe so. But it is a significant raiding force. Your allies report the pirates are lying to the Twelveworld Lord about their strength… that is wise of them, for I doubt the Twelveworld Lord would permit a pirate force to grow so large. It might threaten the worlds on our border./

Jahir’s breath caught.

/Ambassador?/ Oviin touched him again. /You worry this one with your sudden fits. Is this inspiration or pain?/

“Strange,” he said softly. “How the pieces fit together, when they fit.” He took the water from Oviin and drank, ignoring the ache of his abused mouth to savor the cold as it flowed down his throat. It made him aware of the inside of his body, of the beating of his strained heart, of the sudden stillness of this moment. Cloistered in the abandoned harem of a Chatcaavan despot, in a tower too high for clouds, on an alien world too far from home and everything he loved and wanted so badly to protect…

He had pledged himself to this war, and begged Lisinthir—forced him—to prepare him for it, and here he was, just in time to play his part.

/Ambassador? Ambassador!/

/Oviin-alet./ Jahir set the bowl down and exhaled through his rising tension. /Second has removed the eastern naval fleet from Apex-East. The Twelveworld Lord has reinforced it, which prevents our allies from attacking it./

/Correct…?/

/But the Twelveworld Lord has made a deal with pirates, that they should come in on his side in this war, and they have been lying to him. They have, in fact, a force that could take his worlds from him if they attacked them./

/Yes…./ Oviin’s sending had the texture of a hiss.

/So if the pirates attack his world, he would be forced to defend them. Wouldn’t he? And if he did not know the precise strength of that attacking force, he might be convinced to bring the entirety of his offering to put paid to it./

Oviin’s eyes had grown very wide.

/Am I wrong?/ Jahir asked, quiet.

“No,” Oviin said aloud. He nodded toward the bath and shepherded Jahir into it. Dipping a towel into the waters, he began to scrub Jahir’s back. /But why would the pirates attack him?/

/The pirates have no reason to, unless my cousin can convince them there’s advantage in it for them. And… I have every confidence in her, if only I tell her what we need./

/Even if you do, the Twelveworld Lord can easily rout the forces these pirates will be fielding. Three hundred ships… he will crush them, particularly if he finds them all in one place. He will not be gone long./

/Then I will tell the Emperor and his Alliance allies to begin massing for their attack,/ Jahir said. /But this opportunity… this is the one, Oviin-alet. If not this… then I don’t know where we will find our chance./

Oviin frowned, pushing Jahir’s hair out of the way. /There are so many things that could go wrong. What if the pirates continue to lie about their whereabouts? How will the Twelveworld Lord find out about the attack?/

/We will have to make sure some report gets back to him./

Oviin’s hand paused. He resumed scrubbing with less energy. /And if your cousin cannot make this pirate do as she wishes?/

/She is a persuasive woman. I will gamble on her./ Jahir closed his eyes. /We need to send two messages. One to the Emperor. One to my cousin amid the pirates./

The Chatcaavan exhaled, his determination filtering through Jahir’s skin. /I can do so tonight./

/Then here is what I would have you say./

Alone later in his empty chamber, Jahir closed his eyes and rested against the corner with the blanket curled around his shoulders. He could feel the forces gathering around this pivot like a pressure on his skin. That he couldn’t predict the repercussions of enabling it didn’t matter—the inexorability of the pattern was crushing. To resist it would have been unthinkable, and having sent Oviin on his errand he could not doubt its necessity. He had hoped to fight this war at Lisinthir’s side, with a sword and their twined powers at work on the foe; barring that, he had feared his work would involve using his training as a therapist to destroy the mind of the Usurper.

But this, he thought, was it. This was the deciding moment of the war. All it lacked was their commitment to making it work. Sediryl would have to deliver her pirates. The Emperor would have to bring his legion. And Jahir… would have to ensure that the Twelveworld Lord turned his back on the Usurper’s plans.

“God and Lady,” he whispered. “Be with us now.”