CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE - DOUBLE TAP
Shouldn't have obeyed. They shouldn't have obeyed. Tanner could tell herself all she wanted, but the fact was, she was barely out of adolescence, barely out of training, and she shouldn't be obeyed. She was an assistant, an advisor, she had no right to order anyone around, not a single soul. The thing was, even if they shouldn't have obeyed, they did. She hadn't made that magically happen. She hadn't... somehow let the right god ride on her back, a god that everyone else recognised as a rightful commander, the... Lumbering-Giant-Axe, or whatever it might be called. This wasn't a cultural habit, this wasn't simple deference to a rank or a title, this wasn't the sort of obedience fostered by years and years of concerted indoctrination to a very particular belief system - even if it was, there was nothing to enforce it. She was in a landscape where being a judge, a governor, an Erlize officer, any of that, none of it mattered. This place made such titles feel as small and petty as they probably were.
The fact that they'd listened either spoke to something in her, or something in them. And in them, it meant they were weak, spineless, pathetic, easily commanded and easily manipulated, the human equivalent of lemmings or ants. Or, alternatively, it meant she was powerful, domineering, authoritative, capable of eliciting obedience from the most reluctant of subjects.
Neither conclusion sat right with her. And even some sort of idealised middle-ground felt wrong, felt both too spiteful and too narcissistic.
So, what was she? Spiteful? Narcissistic? Did she deride them or love herself? Was there an option where she did neither?
The framework of a judge was wonderful for obliterating one's ego. One wasn't immediately special than everyone else - one was simply the latest outcropping of a continuous cultural system, and in an ideal world, the Golden Law would make judges of everyone, and judges better than any who existed in the present day. All that distinguished her from others was a packet of money and seven years of education. If anyone else had those things, they could very well become a Lord of Appeal, ordering scum like her around willy-nilly.
In conditions of anarchy, it was terribly easy to be a derisive narcissist. There was nothing else to explain why she commanded and they obeyed. Nothing but... but the fact that she had force, and they didn't. She had authority, and they didn't. And the only authority she had was granted through actively convincing the right people. She thought, oddly, that... well... it felt like most cities, most cultures, they had some sort of culture-hero standing at the apex. A founding king or conqueror, a god who birthed the royal lineage, a prime philosopher who performed miracles both secular and sacred, something along those lines. But in this place, where Fidelizh's traditions meant nothing, nor Mahar's, nor Jovan's, all that remained was what she emanated around herself. A culture of her. And her mind, bound up as it was with cultures that venerated heroes and kings and impeccable thinkers, saw an emergent culture or system, and instinctually traced it back to some sort of paragon. That was it. Her mind wasn't relative, but it remained pyramidal. It needed an apex, and when everything was stripped away, and she had to take matters into her own hands, she found that her mind wanted to promote her to that position. To a position held by the long-dead and the supernaturally potent. She had... had no context to place herself in, no grander cultural network into which remarkable people could be slotted. All she had was what she built.
Arrogance. And she resisted it, however she could. Stupid line of thought. She was just... stressed, odd, possibly having a nervous breakdown. This might all just be a string of hallucinations, for all she knew. Yet she'd... she'd faced a bunch of people who'd turned their backs on every source of authority, and she'd reimposed it. By being bigger, stronger, more intimidating, backed up by greater force, force she'd gained by telling a bunch of mutants to get behind her. She'd taken desperate people and made them turn back. If she didn't want to hate them for being cowards, she had to praise herself for being remarkable. And this was wrong. She wasn't.
Yet in her mind, the only slot for someone who could rule without a pre-existing foundation of laws and doctrines was... was a king, a queen, a conqueror, a god.
Stop it.
Stop thinking that way. It was wrong. It was inconceivably arrogant. Remember... remember being an idiot about Eygi. Remember being alone and incoherently awkward. Remember Mr. Pocket, how a single, random oddball had managed to make her nearly crawl out of her own skin. Remember everything, and anchor herself in those memories, in those humiliations. Flagellate herself with resurrected embarrassment. Yet... yet those had all arisen from a complex world. From worlds with competing priorities, as opposed to this world, right here, where the only choice was surviving the mutant onslaught, or succumbing to it. Where success was much more broadly defined, and just meant either moving forward or stopping for good. Sometimes she thought of Eygi, and almost peeled her spine out of her body from sheer, humiliated muscular contraction. Sometimes she thought of Eygi, and just thought 'how on earth can you think of such a thing, when we're dealing with life and death, and you're riding on a mutant'. And then Eygi faded from her mind... and she was back to square one, dealing with the fundamental issue:
Why did they obey? When they were isolated, evacuating, concerned only with survival, with no regard for authority, law, or anything else? Why did they obey?
And how should she feel about that? What did it mean about them? What did it mean about her? They weren't friends, they weren't allies, they weren't disciples, they were neutral. Yet they obeyed.
Why?
She was someone who was accustomed to being a shambolic creature that could barely talk and frequently wanted to run away from uncomfortable situations, she still kneaded her skirt like a child and was obsessed with eels. Authority had only come from being a judge. Any kind of authority imposed outside of that framework was unusual. Downright unnatural. The ramifications were still beyond her.
And she did everything in her power to not think about beating a mutant half to death in the underground river, thinking bizarre things, wrong things, about... chewing and whatnot. Refused to think about it. She was full of bright calm, and that was all well and good, but now that bright calm had been rewarded, by those with no intrinsic reason to.
Anyway. Stop it.
Ride back was uneventful, but Tanner's mind was spinning - pointlessly, of course. Sometimes emotional, but... pragmatism, that was it. Be pragmatic! The settlement was dead. Everyone inside was dead. Probably happened weeks ago, right after she arrived, right after everything froze over and the mutants could be certain of no interruptions. A clinical severing of links to the outside world - not that Tanner meaningfully thought they could evacuate that way, even if they tried. The tunnels were good for shelter, but that didn't mean they could navigate down half-frozen rivers in the middle of midwinter on far too few boats, never designed for this sort of mass flight, through regions that were basically abandoned by civilisation and devoid of life. While being hunted by mutants that were clearly smart enough to understand a suite of advanced tactics, and would be well aware of the risks of them getting back to Fidelizh and warning people of their approach. It would've been suicide to go that way. But if even one made it south... the point was, they'd been sterilised. Nothing coming to help them by the river, nothing getting out. A vanishingly slim chance had become basically impossible. Fine. Workable. But the fact that they could figure this out, and then act with such efficiency, it...
She needed to consult with the General. Bayai was good, Canima was fine, but the General had nothing left but fighting these things. Water supplies would need to be secured against contamination, the underground would need to be checked, tunnels would need to be sealed up, problems, problems... no, no, retreat inside the city, make sure the bunkers were all working fine, secure all supplies. The colony was basically already lost, there were tunnels everywhere, the colony wasn't built to defend against an attack from them, the city was the only place there was a hope of defence. Hadn't even arrived, and they'd already lost the colony proper, the best they could do was keep the people alive. They raced over the snow, through the tunnels, over and under and all around, heading inexorably back to the colony's dark boundary, to the leering statues of the wall-gods, to the intrigue and chaos and the transformation of two to three to four to five to a hundred - possibilities, endings, routes, convolutions, all the intricacies which were irrelevant in the struggle of life and death.
Tanner gritted her teeth, and focused.
Arrived back just after the evacuees did, and she saw Bayai shepherding them back inside, keeping the soldiers from doing anything stupid. Not trying to create grudges, not trying to start riots, just... a slap on the wrist, and Tom-Tom hauled up to the mansion where she could sit and mull over what she'd done, and how little she'd be doing from now on. They exchanged nods, and in that little flicker of the head, authority seemed to flow back around Tanner. From acting-acting-governor Bayai to acting-governor-judge Tanner. She ought to train Bayai to be a judge, or get herself a few military ranks, then they could add even more hyphens to their names. Oh, no, wait, they could get marred, and then Tanner could have a double-barrelled last name, Magg-Whatever-Bayai's-Last-Name-Was, and then they could collect hyphens together for the rest of time, and wouldn't that just be darling. Given enough time, she could be... lance-corporal-acting-governor-judge-lady Tanner Magg-W-B-L-N-W, and... she ought to join Tom-Tom in the mansion. Tom-Tom to mull over how little she ought to do in future, and Tanner to mull over how little she ought to think in future. Her brain was a terrible organ. Tanner's brain was the appendix of her skull, and one day it was going to explode, and the world would be a better place.
Could think with her stomach instead. Much more reliable organ.
Anyway.
She didn't call out to Bayai, or engage him in conversation. But Tanner... crap, crap, she knew what she had to do. Her face was as stoic as usual as she approached the colony, remembering idly the clusters of soldiers who'd been talking in hushed tones when she left. Ought to have a chat with that bunch, shouldn't she? Ms. Blue, definitely. Added to the list of priorities. OK. So, a fundamental problem. She'd just taken Tom-Tom prisoner. Meaning, she had a hostage against her father, Vyuli. If Vyuli got nervous as a result of this, if he suddenly rediscovered oceans of paternal affection, or if he found out that Tanner was making a large number of colonists a better offer than he could, he'd do something stupid. He was an old freak, he'd want the colony to die before his dream of restoring Nalser was denied for good. He must know he was one of the only people in Fidelizh who both had the dream and could act on it - that could provide a hell of a lot of insane martyrdom-infused desperation. And, he had a giant bundle of theurgic bombs ready to go off. And she didn't need those bombs, she had the theurgists, she could make better bombs. Presumably.
Ought to check on them.
She wished that she could just... split into two or three regular-sized Tanners, and work through them. Alas, she did not. All she had was Bayai (stressed), Yan-Lam (child), Marana (cocaine-addled alcoholic middle-aged surrealist mess of a woman), and the General, plus his forces (enslaving mutated nobility). Well...
...hold on.
Why was... Bayai looking at her that way?
Was... did she have something on her face? Beyond the gas mask? Was it her hair, or... she hysterically thought to herself in that manner only the deeply overworked could, had he realised what a specimen of rare beauty she was, and was completely smitten, and shut up, Tanner. Just because some ordinary people liked your ideas didn't mean anything remarkable. Probably just intimidated by the axe. So why was his mouth making those odd movements, and...
A grunt from beneath her.
She shushed Mr. Horn-
Mr. Horn.
Ah.
Fuck.
This was what happened when you were busy.
You forgot things. Like the fact that you were riding a very large mutant from the depths of the earth and this was something she 'd intended to do later, and...
Hell. Might as well cross it off. Dozy mare that she was.
She hopped down from Mr. Horn's back, shivering under the shocked looks of the soldiers milling around the front gate. Ah. Right. She shot a quick glance at Bayai... he looked about ready to spontaneously combust. Tanner clenched her fist - resisting the urge to spontaneously combust herself, she had too much work to do, combustion was for later. Had she told him to... no, no, she'd intended to drip-feed the news of the mutants. No time for that now. Either way, reports would never really prepare one for the sight of the creatures. Tanner hesitated. Clenched her fist harder - she could feel the combustion starting, she was about to liquefy, but if she really, really tensed up, stiffened her back, clenched her buttocks, she could probably use her muscles to hold in the expanding flames. Plus, last she heard, the combustion was all about the fat of the body igniting, and she barely ate.. Ha! Knew that fasting out of stress would pay off, it was stopping her from spontaneously combusting! She needed to calm down. No, she didn't. She needed to act. She slammed her axe into the snowy earth. And bellowed.
"Right! Soldiers! This-"
She gestured at Mr. Horn, who was currently picking snow from between his toes with placid grace.
"-is a Rekidan! He's sane, he's rational, he's been fighting mutants since before half of you were born, and there's about twenty-five others like him! They'll be remaining outside the colony for now, but expect to see them more in future! They hate mutants, they're perfectly sane, and all they want is to kill more mutants before they die!"
Her heart was racing as she realised, oh, yes, she was yelling at rather a large number of soldiers, some of whom were... making odd noises. She glanced around... and her eyes fixed on a familiar face. Ms. Blue, staring at her with her big eponymous eyes, absolutely awe-struck by the sight of Tanner riding around on a very large red-headed man from the bowels of the earth. And... admittedly, Tanner had very large lungs. She just never used them to yell, not very often anyway, and the effect was... pronounced. Ms. Blue stared at Tanner. Tanner stared at her. And the soldier seemed to get the message.
"Woo!"
Tanner blinked.
Hold on, that wasn't Ms. Blue.
That was someone else.
That was someone else entirely. Couldn't even see them, but the other soldiers were stirring a little. Ms. Blue looked downright offended by the fact that someone else had gotten there first, and issued her own 'woo' with at least double the volume and pitch, plus ten times the ferocity. Why were... were... no. Hold on. The other soldiers were joining in. The other soldiers were joining in. Even Bayai looked absolutely taken aback by this sudden outpouring of enthusiasm, and Tanner had absolutely no clue...
Hold on.
The theurgists must've been seen coming into the colony.
The evacuees were definitely seen. Tom-Tom being dragged up to the mansion would be especially seen. The suddeness of the switch from 'dozens of people are gone' to 'dozens of people are back, uninjured and compliant' would be... quite something, given the tension. And... come to think of it, hadn't... no, wait, the man who'd told them about the evacuation to begin with was someone she'd arrested before she went below the earth. And Ms. Blue said that stories were going around about Tanner's ability to execute violence against those the soldiers disliked, or openly despised. And, she'd... taken control of the colony and was ordering Bayai around, instead of Canima or the corrupt Sersas, and... and she had an axe? And she'd just shown up with nearly thirty mutant soldiers, one of whom had allowed her to ride around on his enormous back, and who was treating the colony like any human would.
...well, still.
They could avoid cheering.
Her collarbone was flushing completely red, and she had to resist the urge to bury her head in the snow.
Stop praising her. It was embarrassing. Just... tacitly acknowledge! A nod, a smile, a polite clap, that was the dignified way of doing it, and... and she hurried through without doing much in the way of waving and accepting the adulation. Didn't know how to. Did she wave? Did she... smile? Should she smile at them? She was intensely panicked, she found it hard to show any emotions when she was like this, so... just walk. Walk, walk, walk, and hope that... oh, gods, they were still making noises. Mr. Horn looks downright bemused by the whole affair - damn nobles, and their comfort with being high-status. Tanner could handle, mostly, the pressures of command, the tension of authority, but the moment people praised her for any of this, she wanted to rip away her cloak and live in a ditch for the rest of her life under the name of Nertan, beggar and madwoman with... rabies and trichinosis and scrofula. And whatnot.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Oh, gods, they were still doing it.
Walk. Walk. Walk. Walk steadily and in a calm and orderly fashion, because running like she wanted to would mean... bad things, presumably. Undermine the aura of authority she had apparently, accidentally cultivated amongst them. There - accept the praise, because to do otherwise would kill her.
...would dying be so terrifically bad?
Yes. Yes it would. Shut up.
Walk until they stopped making noises of a praising nature, because she could no longer hear them and that meant they might as well have stopped. Assumed they stopped the moment she left their sight, and returned to their normal conversations afterwards with nary a mention of her. If she wasn't seen, she didn't exist. The colony around her felt different, really. Radically different. The black windows no longer seemed quite so beetle-like, the overhanging roofs no longer seemed as... unnervingly close. She'd seen people running away, then ordered them to go back, and they'd obeyed. And like that, things felt more controlled. The cartel wasn't an omnipotent force that had infiltrated the hearts of every man and woman in this place, the Erlize weren't either. She crunch of snow underfoot was the only sound as she advanced, but the general silence had a quality of... reassurance to it. Like an animal being silent, eyes looking away, whole body shifting to something more obedient and submissive.
The colony was a dog, and since she'd arrived it'd been either a dog owned by someone else, or a rabid animal. Now she could see it slinking away with its tail between its legs. And it felt... like she could never be quite as afraid as she'd been before. Seen the soft underbelly.
Knew how vulnerable it truly was.
And speaking of vulnerable...
The cold-house loomed. She advanced without anyone at her side, no soldiers, no mutants. Every success against the cartel, against the stagnation and conspiracy afflicting the colony, had been done with speed and individual effort. Careful planning had always grown tangled up in itself, and relying on too many others just made her noticeable, slow, and easily predicted. She marched straight from the gates to the cold-house, and strode up the hill with enough speed to leave a vague mist of drifting white snow behind her, mingling with the increasing snowfall from up above. Her axe dragged a deep groove into the soft powder, and her ice-flecked buffalo cloak made her shape seem strangely primal, like she was some natural formation of the wasteland that'd grown legs and shambled off. Her hair felt wild and untamed, uncombed and unbound. Closer to the pelt around her shoulders than anything else. Could see people shuffling around the house up ahead, though not as many as she suspected. She approached the door, too fast for her to feel any doubts, washing it all away in the blinding rush of adrenaline and single-minded focus that she'd come to increasingly depend on.
Didn't knock.
Slammed the haft of the axe into the metal door, leaving an obvious dent, making the whole damn structure ring like a bell.
There was scrambling, yelling, fear entered the air, if she sniffed she thought she could detect... dried sweat waking up as fresh sweat emerged under it, old and new mingling freely in an intoxicating haze. Hair oil evaporating as scalps warmed with nervousness, giving a kind of feeble perfume to it all. And always, the dry, cloying spice of twice-dead meat. The wheezing of the theurgic engine seemed to be the rattling of an old man's chest as he was forced to run for the first time in decades. Tanner's own heart felt swollen with muscle, pulsing with lazy ease and grace, and her body was tightly bound around her bones. She felt like a log carried on the tide of the ocean - inexorably large, practically invulnerable, and carried by an unstoppable force that flowed around her yet never entered her. Boat without sail or oar, moving to the tune of deeper currents.
She slammed the axe into the door once again. Rang the bell of the cold-house by turning the entire building into a bell.
And this time it opened.
An old man with perpetually squinting eyes stared up at her.
And she pushed past without saying a word, a strange vitality overriding her usual politeness. Not letting them have a second more time to prepare. She pushed past him, and he said nothing, just... moved aside. Another door pushed open - she didn't put on a heavy coat to shield from the cold, the buffalo cloak would do just fine. She emerged into the room of glittering glass jars filled with vacuum-sealed meat, the ceiling hanging heavy with great racks of gleaming ribs and hollowed-out, shrivelling carcasses, the fruit of the enormous theurgic tree in the centre.
Could she detect a little slowing in the tree's pulses?
A little... irregularity in the lights?
The engine was starting to decay. And Tanner, not Vyuli, had access to the means of repairing it.
The man himself was seated where he normally was, but his hair was lank, and his eyes had a frenzied nervousness to them. He was spiralling out of control, might well do something stupid. Fewer bouncers around him than last time - of course there were, he had no time to prepare for this, and a good chunk of them had actively betrayed him by running away. She couldn't imagine what he was thinking, seeing his own daughter running off with so many of his own, both door-guards and civilians. Running without him being able to stop her.
He looked up at her. Tanner gently slug the axe over her shoulder, relishing in how the small, clever eyes of the old man followed the blade so very keenly. Come to think of it... this was an axe designed to kill mutants. Nearly totally blunt, to stop a dying mutant from spraying contamination all over her.
If she attacked him with it, she wouldn't cut his head off with a polite strike.
She'd crush him like an ant.
And that didn't sound very dignified, did it? Decapitations were probably more refined than squashings. .
She still felt a tiny pulse of fear at the sight of him. Remembering his knives. The sadness in his eyes as he readied himself to torture her.
Maybe that was where it started. The realisation that failure in the colony would mean her long, protracted, exceedingly painful death.
He'd placed a knife at her back, he could hardly be surprised when she broke into a panicked sprint.
Could hardly be surprised when she came back, wielding an axe. He'd thought to immobilise her with that knife, like a snake hypnotising its prey. Instead... more like a hunter startling a herd of buffalo. A few stray shots, a few mistakes... and thus began the stampede.
He spoke, and his soft, soft voice seemed so terribly small now.
"Might I ask why you invade my-"
Tanner overrode him, and he blinked in surprise. Losing another hint of his predatory air, his understanding of her shifting - something to be avoided or placated, rather than calmly snipped away.
"Canima's no longer in charge. That would be me. Your daughter's been hauled back, keeping her in custody until she learns some sense."
His eyes narrowed.
"I'd recommend giving her back. Wouldn't want-"
"You're aware we have theurgists, now. We have more forces, too. A fair number of your own men have demonstrated a willingness to abandon you. If we fought, I'd win. You might not even get the chance to detonate the cold-houses."
"Don't count on that."
"Fine. I won't. Even if I think you'd fail, and I do, I'd rather not start anything. So. Let's make a deal."
Vyuli barked at her, and rose to his feet. Even with her newfound willpower, she still had to fight back the urge to shrink into herself and retreat. The axe seemed to help, weighing her down, anchoring her in place.
"The deal is what it's always been, girl. Hand over Canima to us. Surrender the colony's functions to me. I have no interest in playing the role of a lamb negotiating with a drooling wolf - we have your food, have fun trying to keep the loyalty of any of those forces you mentioned when they start to starve. You have the authority, don't you? Then hand Canima over, and surrender the authority you possess to me - no need to consult him, you could order it done from right here. You can keep my daughter, useless, traitorous creature that she is."
Tanner studied him.
"...I should probably mention that the extra forces in question are mutants."
A pause.
Vyuli said nothing, but his mouth was very slightly open.
Tanner's voice dropped a little. Barely a murmur, had to force the words to come out - and her face was flat with panic. Half of her was still terrified of him. Half of her was enraged. And all that propelled this equilibrium forwards was the momentum of being here, of climbing up the hill, of riding across the wastes on Mr. Horn... hearing the cheers of the soldiers and seeing the dissolution of the evacuees. Success, success, success... that was all that kept her going when everything else was locked up and paralysed.
"They're Rekidans. If you detonate the food supplies, they'll have no reason to leave you alone. They know the tunnels better than you do. You won't be able to stop them. And once you're gone, who will keep the idea of resurrecting Nalser going?"
She smelled weakness. The lies flowed easily from her panicked tongue.
"The Rekidans still have nobles. They still have people who remember the city, and what it used to believe. The nobles have survived since the Great War, and have stayed totally sane. They know how to feed humans by hunting for them. If you blow up the food supplies, they'll just take every single Rekidan they can get their hands on, and they'll head out to keep them alive while the city gets invaded again. You'll be ripped apart, or you'll starve to death. So will every last member of your organisation. It'll take... maybe a generation before there's even another chance for someone like you to re-establish Nalser. And you came up here because you thought you didn't have time for that kind of waiting, you had to act now, regardless of your age, to save something you thought was vanishing. The shantytown, you said, destroys cultures, levels dialects, turns everyone into the same basic mass."
She glared.
"That's your choice. Work with me, and I'll give you certain benefits. You won't get Canima. You won't get control. But your people will still get to live here, if we survive. If you cooperate, there's a small chance of achieving what you want. If you fight, that's it. You get nothing. Maybe your organisation just gets wiped out before you can destroy the food supplies, or maybe you just starve to death afterwards, if you don't die to the rest of the mutants."
She stepped a little closer, towering over him. Could see fight and flight warring in his shrivelled old brain.
"It's the Great War again. Just like you said."
When he'd made compromise upon compromise in order to stay alive and get south, to escape the mutant tide, to save his family and to establish himself as a leader of his people. If he hadn't made those compromises, he would've lost. And he was working out, she could plainly see, the probability of success when it came to escaping. Evacuating, like his daughter did. Admitting she was right, he was wrong. But... well. She'd already used the best escape route. Made it plain how things would go in such a situation. He knew, full well, that running was no longer on the table - and Tanner knew this as well, because she'd seen the ruined settlement where no boats could be launched. Even if he abandoned almost everyone here to escape in small numbers, even if he miraculously made it, he was old. No chance of trying this kind of scheme again.
He could run, and die in ignominy, his dreams collapsing around him.
He could fight, and lose, and die with his dreams collapsing around him.
He could fight, and win, and maybe, maybe he'd have a chance.
For some people, a chance of such slimness wasn't worth fighting for, better to look for more options, to really see if this was the best one could get.
But she'd hit him where he lived. The Great War... everything about him was defined by that conflict. Everything he was had been built on a foundation of near-extinction. His brutality, his appearance, his authority, his methods, his dreams, his loyalties, every last feature of his existence was laced with strings of old, bloody conflict, until it was hard to see where the pre-war Vyuli might've lived. With a strange shock, she realised... she could probably engage with him more now than she could with Canima. Canima, she could just... see a shell of a man, dedicated to systems that had chained him, and prevented him from doing what needed to be done. When she saw Vyuli, she saw someone a little, a little, like herself.
Someone who would do anything to survive. She wasn't on his level, of course. But... the principle remained. She'd broken her vows, broken her faith, broken a good few scruples, and was lying to him, massaging the truth to make things a little easier.
To his credit, Vyuli didn't point this out. She knew he could. But when the two locked eyes, she saw that he knew. He knew what she did, and he felt no need to spell it out for her.
A shiver ran up her spine.
And he spoke with surprising strength.
"Hm. Fair enough."
Tanner blinked.
...not sure if she wanted him to be more dramatic. The old man's mouth quirked slightly, inching towards something resembling the impression of a smile.
"You make fair points. Entirely reasonable. Keep my daughter, if you want. Keep her out of my hair. Don't kill her, though. Keep Canima, I doubt he'll be of any use. Now, what benefits do you offer us?"
"I'll... burn a number of records. Remove evidence of your cartel, slow down whoever tries to track you down after me."
"Too many know about us in the colony. My authority is damaged, they'd be happy to talk in exchange for money or safety. Burned documents won't do me much good."
"They can't do you much harm, though. And the Erlize love working through bureaucracy."
"Still. An investigator like yourself could cause some... issues, in future."
"We're isolated until spring. Even when spring rolls around, the settlement near the river is dead, the dock is ruined, the boats are likely all destroyed. That's more delays for getting back in touch with Fidelizh. Plenty of time to sort out alternatives, no point counting our chickens before they hatch."
He grumbled, sitting back down with obvious relief crossing his face.
"Stupid phrase - you can count the eggs, only an idiot wouldn't count the number of eggs they have, you can get an estimate. Just because you can't tell the number of chickens down to an absolute number doesn't mean you can't try, get it within a good margin of error. In Nalser, the equivalent phrase was 'don't name your heir before they're of age', much more accurate. Can lose your heirs to disease, murder, accidents, exiles, they could be born stupid, born weak, born with two heads... plenty of options, and the margin of error is nastier, not like you've got dozens of eggs. Feh."
Was he...
Was he telling an anecdote? Was he making light conversation?
Tanner wasn't... she was definitely afraid, yes. Definitely afraid. And relieved. And afraid. And confused. And very, very afraid, because this man had almost tortured her to death, would kill her if he thought it was worthwhile, and... all she had to do was keep it not worthwhile.
"I need guarantees, though. First - the Rekidan nobles won't attack us, we don't want a war."
"Already guaranteed, they're mutants, won't be raising another generation. And you know that most Rekidans don't even want to come back."
"Fine. Second - my thing will endure afterwards, we retain control of the food supply, at no stage do we have our rights challenged."
Tanner hummed.
"...I could draw up a proper justification. If we... made agreements for your cartel to become a legitimate organisation, like a kind of labour union, or a citizen's club. Bound within a legal framework, administrated openly."
"Hiding us under a layer of conspiracy. Someone's sounding like the governor."
Gods, she hoped not.
"We'd be tamed, then. No more secrecy."
"No more total secrecy. More likely to survive your death."
In her mind, all she needed to do was outlast Vyuli. And she definitely could. He was an old man, and his one daughter would probably be happy to leave his whole legacy behind. The bouncers were unpopular already. She'd be taming them, yes, and that would make them easier to work with. Vyuli was a criminal, and he worked with criminals. Making the cartel a legitimate group would slowly drive them out, because instead of this being a criminal cult filled with criminals, it'd be a legal group that would want to expunge problematic elements. Could take time. But even Canima would probably recognise the idea as worthwhile. The issue was... if he didn't, if another investigator or Erlize agent didn't, then there could be problems.
In her heart of hearts, though, she didn't care. Worst case, the cartel lived on for a while, Vyuli died, it was slowly dragged to being law-abiding, then the full weight of the law came crashing down and wiped it out for good. Ugly, but... hardly a bad outcome. And if Vyuli realised this, as seemed likely, he'd be doing all he could to make sure things resolved in his favour. Tanner wondered... if things worked out a certain way, would she be willing to just wipe him out, betray his trust, betray her promises? Kill him for his crimes?
...she might.
She very well might. Couldn't take it off the table that such a situation would arise. For now, though, they were both just trying to survive. Vyuli wouldn't compromise that, Tanner wouldn't compromise that. Needed to make things official, though.
"There's... one other thing."
"Hm."
"Lyur."
A sudden tightening. A retreat back into the hard, uncaring man she'd known, with the sad, sad eyes and the bright, bright knife. His face became a solid wall against all intrusion - camaraderie diminished immediately.
"Ah. What of him."
"You know he's a lunatic. He let me go, when he could've killed me. He encouraged your daughter during the Tyer debacle. He conducted himself in such a way that assisted my investigation. I believe he may have even been involved in your daughter's evacuation effort. He did this because he could. Because he's completely insane. I understand that makes him a good attack dog, but that sort of attack dog isn't necessary, not with our common enemy."
She pasued. Right. Come on. Do it. Just... say the words. Say them.
"And he killed the governor."
Vyuli blinked slowly.
"Did he, now."
"He did this because, again, he could. He used the tunnels to enter the governor's secret office - he has a secret office, incidentally - and then killed him. Canima then moved the body in order to make sure no-one could find out about the office, or some other underhanded dealings the two were involved in. He could do this because of the governor's own policies, and yours. There was something poetically fitting about it, which I think is why he... did the deed. The Rekidans told me about it - they occupied those parts of the tunnels, knew the layout, and watched him doing it."
"You trust their testimony."
"They've got no reason to lie, and their description of appearance was... accurate. They don't know the names of a single person up here, unless I've told them. Only one of them even speaks our language to any degree of competency. They described Lyur perfectly, and maybe, yes, I'd be willing to call this dubious, but with his motives fitting in, his behaviours fitting in, everything fitting in, and with them having no great knowledge of what's going on up here, nor any inherent loyalty to anyone besides themselves, I think I trust their account. Would you really want to insist on proper due process for something like this?"
A deep breath.
"The evidence was all tampered with after the fact, the prime witnesses are an Erlize officer and a Rekidan noble, there's no scenario where I can provide perfect evidence. Even Lyur's confession might be thrown out due to a known habit of lying, and possible insanity. Back in Fidelizh this is the kind of case where the opinion of a judge would have the most weight, because the details of the case are so convoluted, so subject to distortion."
"...always hated that notion. That a judge was some priest of higher thinking, even when the evidence was thin. Even then, you could just... let a judge talk, and they'd say nothing but truth."
Tanner grimaced.
"I understand. I do. Usually I'd just ask to lock Lyur up until someone else could mediate, someone less connected to the case. But he's dangerous, and things are tense. The people here think your lot killed the governor. Some think Canima did, and that's almost as bad, it undermines all forms of trust in authority. Some might think the mutants did it, and that'll spread fear at how much they've infiltrated. And once the Rekidans start working with us more fully, how long until they become suspects? Lyur is a bouncer, nobody likes them, and his continued freedom taints their whole organisation."
Translation: give me Lyur, give me a scapegoat, or people will find out that you're harbouring him. Good luck even keeping a single ally once that happens.
By doing this, Vyuli could regain faith among the colony, and among his men. His control would be solidified, rather than weakened - he saw a problem, he neutralised it. By doing this, Tanner could put to rest an investigation that had consumed the entire population, magnified paranoia, magnified everything. If she told the actual truth, she'd have a war with the nobles - just losing them as allies would be terrible, having to fight them would be catastrophic.
She had to lie.
She had to perform a final betrayal of every vow she'd taken. Betray the judges, betray the Golden Law, betray her tutors, betray everything because it would help her.
She'd already come too far.
The words had already left her mouth.
She couldn't retract them. Not at this stage. The betrayal had already been done. Thus, she bought the loyalty of the nobles. Thus, she destroyed Lyur. Thus, she calmed the feud between cartel and colony. Thus, she... likely made the colony realise that she was truly, truly different to the governor or Canima, she didn't sidle around and act secretly, she was on their side. Going after the people who'd harassed them, beaten them, murdered them, all to pursue the agendas of two old, control-obsessed men.
Had to do it.
Had already done it.
Could never undo it, regardless. Live with the consequences, or don't live at all.
...she could never go back home after this, could she?
Vyuli stared...
And nodded.
But the words that left his mouth chilled her.
"I'll have my men hunt him down. But when the time comes, we have a talk about where Canima ends up, and-"
"Hunt him down? You don't have him?"
"He's in the tunnels, we know that much. We're watching all the exits, he can't get out."
"He's free?"
"He's trapped, his cell is just an esecially large one."
Tanner stared.
Felt the urge to growl. Resisted it.
"I'll get the Rekidans to find him."
"No. No. Not letting that happen. Give me a day, I'll have him out. If I don't, you can do what you need to. But if you get Lyur, it's because we made an agreement, not because you ran roughshod over us."
Still thinking about status and honour and authority and gah.
"Fine. I'll see you in a day."
"Not if I see you sooner."
She turned on her heel and left, cursing internally with startling viciousness. Canima all over again. Less bound by systems, but still bound by them, by his dreams, his ideals, his wish to see something more than the next sunrise. If she could just... get rid of him and assume control of the cartel as well, she'd be fine. The moment she dragged someone else in, with their own priorities and delusions, everything became riddled with problems. Vyuli couldn't have dragged the evacuees back, Vyuli couldn't keep his people under control, Vyuli couldn't have brought the Rekidans up, so why did he get to have such a say in controlling the colony?
Could crush him. With her axe.
She was already preparing herself to... to do something with Lyur. Imprisonment, maybe. Most likely. Yes, imprisonment, that was the decent thing, and it was action. She was already violating dozens of laws to do this, why not accelerate justice for Vyuli as well? Why not get rid of him, and then she'd be in total command, no-one interfering, no more layers of conspiracy and intrigue strangling the colony before the mutants could even arrive. Why not?
...because...
Because...?
The question lingered in her mind like a brand. Only platitudes of vague pragmatism softened it, gave the impression of it... being complicated, and it deserved more thought, and surely amongst those thoughts she'd find a good reason to not be an absolute tyrant.
But even as she reached the mansion...
She found herself without a follow-up to that one, burning word.
Because?