CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY - BEGIN?

The sunlight was slanting through the shutters in her room, casting long pale fingers across the woodwork, stretching out longer and thinner as the day grew stronger and the sun rose higher. Tanner watched the dust dance in the beams. Her hand drummed over her axe. Spring. Must be. There was a startling suddenness to it all. Seemed like only a few hours ago the world had been a white, dead place, so snowed over that it was impossible even to see the ground, and all the wrecks of the battles had become vague, anonymous mounds that might've been anything, or nothing. And then... then warm winds had blown. A switch had been flipped. The interminable pale was replaced by a patchwork. Where the snow had been thinnest - shielded by overhangs and convolutions of walls - it melted first, and patches of muddy brown earth protruded, followed by the sprouting of deep green grass, hardy and powerful. In a land which seemed destined to be nothing but dead, there was... actual life. A scabrous tapestry of deep green, vague yellow-brown from last year's growth, and stubborn white. The Ina trees, from which liquor could be distilled, began to slowly fold themselves upwards, relieved of the burden of snow. Their cage-roots began to look comical, exposed to the raw air like the ribs of a dead mule. Animals that had nested there all winter, even through the invasion, began to scuttle out, blinking in the sunshine.

When Tanner saw the bears, she knew something had shifted. The land had maybe, maybe forgiven them. Tal-Sar had been forgiven for his deed. The bloodshed had been enough - they were allowed to have spring back. All it had taken was soaking the earth with the blood of mutants, of Rekidan nobles, of soldiers aplenty. Every authority in the colony had to die before the earth would give them the warmth back, would begin to eat the melting snow, gulp by gulp, drift by drift, until eventually the land was visible once more. Buffalo, shedding their winter coats in shaggy heaps, stumbled out of the mountains where they'd been sheltering, trotting on strangely small hooves as they made their way towards the fresh grass. The snow-cranes were back, flying with mechanical certainty back to where they'd come from. Tanner remembered her vagrant, the stray crane that remained behind while the others migrated, warming itself by the steam-vents of the theurgists' laboratory. Doubtless dead at this point. Too cold, too harsh, and the steam had long-since stopped. But the others had come. And one little crane was easily forgotten when the sky was full of the things, nimble and thin and with beaks extending out like compass points. Returning with all the casualness that animal instinct brought.

Might never have left. For the first time since the battle... time felt like it had actually resumed. And with it, the world felt more controlled. Instead of a single, frozen pocket of snow and blood, there was something normal. A country that flowed from one position to another, that lived in the same world as everyone else. A hundred years ago, it had been different. A hundred years from now, it might be unrecognisable. Even a few months was enough to slowly gnaw away at the image of untouchable white that had glared Tanner in the face for her entire time here. Her meals changed. Game was returning from wherever they'd been hiding. Deer, for instance - deer. Her meals had venison in them, and quail, and buffalo, and elk, and meat which bled when she sliced it, rather than crumbling dustily away. There wasn't much effort in hunting them, the deer would cluster happily around the colony, chewing away at the grass and cropping it short. Always steering clear of the places where the mutants had been abundant, where the ground still bore the crackling whisper of contamination. Once, Tanner found herself walking silently around the fringes of the colony, as she was wont to do. Not sure when she started the habit. Knew that once upon a time she liked walking to clear her head. Now, though... always had bodyguards around her, and couldn't quite banish them. Never managed to get the words out. Maybe a part of her was terrified that they were vital props to her authority, that she'd be torn to pieces by the colonists the moment she was undefended. Maybe they needed... the equivalent of mystery plays, gaudy actors strutting about offering object lessons in how to be, in what to do.

Maybe she just needed constant reminders. Maybe she was afraid that if she was truly, truly alone during her walks, she'd run for the hills immediately. Maybe she thought that the colonists truly hated her - why wouldn't they? She was brutal. She'd been unjust. Her deeds were tyrannical, her approach to the law was unlawful, her rise to power was paved with the deaths of others, her most loyal guardians were bloodstained priests and priestesses who stank up any room they were in and grew stranger by the day. But... anyway. During one of her accompanied walks, she found herself sighting a deer off in the melting snow. Chewing placidly at one of the patches of deep green grass sustained by the increasingly kindly sun and the steady trickle of moisture from the dying pale. Snow-country dying to feed the green-country. The deer was a healthy one, young and spry. Tawny-coloured and graceful, no antlers to make it intimidating. It was confident in its safety - dulled, maybe, by the slow silence of winter.

Tanner stared at it.

The guards braced themselves. Maybe wondering if she was going to tell them to kill it for her supper. One of them, a man who had attached thatching to the snout of his gas mask to elongate it, to ornament it, to make it seem more primal and sacred, drummed his heavy gauntlets against his rifle... even this sound was enough for the deer to look up and stare. Huge dark eyes, dark as oil, with no pupils nor whites, locked onto Tanner.

Something lived in those eyes.

Something old.

Tanner was absolutely frozen. Paralysed by those black eyes. Black as opals, just as iridescent. The deer continued to stare levelly at her. This... there was... it was hard to describe. But for a second she could feel something she hadn't felt in a long, long time. Not since Fidelizh. Not since those halcyon days where everything had made sense, where she could time her life down to the second. This deer had been operating on nothing but natural instincts - just as all its ancestors had. At no point had there been a blossoming of higher intelligence. And... the mutant tide had almost eradicated every human in this colony. Every last one. And this creature, and others like it, had existed in the north when the tide came, and they were still here when it went away. They'd endured the Great War, and everything that had preceded it. No challenge had put them down for good. Mutation was just another threat in a world replete with them. No illusion of control - the world was full of predators, diseases, disasters, simple accidents, parasites, starvation, drought, and mutation. This deer, with its black eyes, couldn't control a single one of them. Not really.

And here it was. Eating grass just as it always would, until the day it died. Absolutely placid.

Slowly, gracefully, the tawny neck curved downwards, and the creature resumed the cropping of the grass. Barely a few months ago, that grass was non-existent, killed by snow, crushed by endless bodies, scorched by erupting cold-houses, poisoned and ravaged and utterly useless. Didn't matter to the deer. All that mattered was that the grass was here, and the deer was hungry. Past, present, and future intertwined for this animal. An eternal golden braid. The same thing she'd felt in Fidelizh when she joined the judges, when she was younger and infinitely stupider. Happy at the idea of being part of a continuum, a real continuous process that dictated her every action and response, something that had been around long before she was born, would be around long after she died. Could look around at any given moment and see countless people doing exactly what she was. Validating her existence and actions through their own, a constant production of precedent for her to follow.

The oil-black eyes drifted away from her. The effect was broken.

Tanner walked on, axe slung over her shoulder in its customary position, body uncannily smooth in its movements as mutation continued to improve it. Her bodyguard continued behind her, loyal as bloodhounds.

The memory of the eyes lingered.

She knew, in her heart of hearts, that they might never be expunged. When she closed her eyes to sleep... the darkness of her eyelids seemed just as shimmering and animalistic as those of the deer. Blank. Empty of thought... empty of doubt.

Empty of everything but natural function.

* * *

Life was intoxication. Life was just a sequence of addictions that mounted up and up. The first addictions were simple - food, drink, company. Addictions that festered inside the soul, sculpted it into an engine for satisfying the intoxication, bringing it all back again. Alcohol changed thought, created channels and passages and routes which only alcohol could unlock. Maybe down those routes lay happiness, or contentment, or just thought. A whole new mind had been created by addiction, and for the brain to become itself, to really be born, it needed to unlock those pathways again. The same was true of narcotics, maybe. Marana was only herself, truly, when she had a little alcohol or something-or-other in her system. Without it, she was half a person. Some vital corner of her soul locked away in convolutions of grey matter, and the only map could be found in a bottle. The same thing happened with blood and cold.

Blood-drunk were her priests. Snow-drunk were her people. Maybe she fell into both categories herself. Violence made the body tighter, it sharpened thoughts, it clarified priorities. Adrenaline rushed and reshaped. The entire mind shifted when it was in conditions of violence. Tanner had been involved in a pitched battle, and in that battle had emerged bright calm. Maybe Tanner had been born then, maybe another, more powerful mind had emerged from the carnage. And now, in conditions of calm, that other Tanner was gone. Locked away inside her brain. Ready to be woken up again. Not as some sort of... parasite, just... herself. Another part of herself. By killing, by performing injustice, Tanner had now divided herself. She was no longer a singular person. And the only way to become more complete, to refresh her understanding of this other Tanner, she had to intoxicate herself again.

Blood demanded blood. And the cold... the cold seeped into people. The cold seeped into her. Snow-drunkenness was a bad state to be in. It was to become slower, quieter, more conservative in all actions. It re-articulated all priorities, chained all activities, made everything different. A winter-person was a very different creature to a summer-person. The environment shaped actions, the actions shaped habits, the habits shaped thoughts, the thoughts shaped the soul. And slowly but surely, the winter was dying. More green with each passing day. And Tanner now waited in her chambers again. Staring at a fire she knew was going out. Once, she'd be shovelling more fuel onto it immediately, getting it going no matter what. Ordered one of her attendants to bring her more - there, another type of intoxication. Tyranny-drunk. Tanner-as-governor was... a very odd creature. And the longer she remained as a governor, the more this creature could emerge, could complete itself. And then, no matter what she did, she would always be ready to relapse. Descent was always easier the second time, when the distance was known, the conditions understood, the route memorised and well-carved.

She watched the fire burn down.

Watched as it died out.

More judgements had been passed. Complaints addressed. Squabbles dealt with. The heat was starting to wean people away from being snow-drunk all the time. Parts of their minds which had been locked away by blood and cold were unlocking, old routes were being retrodden. They could still slip back, of course. The habits had been created, it wouldn't take much to reignite the old fires of obedience and devotion. Tanner had spent her entire life trying to shut her thoughts off, to restrain the uncontrolled loops that her mind fell into, to become a machine in body and soul. She knew how... effective it could be. How tempting. How poetry could drain from the mind like pus from a wound. How everything could become so... grey. The comforting grey of a cloudy day, where the sun wasn't too intense, the rains weren't too harsh, the winds weren't too strong. Everything at a happy, repetitive medium. And out here, with the midnight sun, you could have grey days forever and ever...

Until spring.

Until now.

The ashes, grey as her ideal sky, grey as a mechanical mind, stared back at her.

Two eyes. Mechanical grey. And inky black. Both mindless. Both content. Both driven by habits - the former imposed, the latter natural. Both rich with the tranquillity of zero-thought. Yan-Lam was at her post, muttering away, negotiating the iron-scented corridors of her brain. Marana was at her post., examining the remains of an impossible intelligence. All-Name was at his post, applying funeral oils and waiting to die. Even Bayai was at his post, though she'd not spoken more than a few words to him in the last few months. He marched around these days. Observed his men. Them aware of his uncle. Him aware of their awareness. He was a traitor, in their minds. In her own. He was someone who'd brought in the outside. Old loyalties, old priorities. Once, understandable. Now... how dare he be human. How dare he be a civilised animal in a country of madmen and bloodstained priests. He'd been bound by all the ties they lacked or had forsaken - country, family, honour, obligation. He was the virtuous sinner who reminded the sinning virtuous how they had once been, perhaps. Like looking at a doll and envying how neat it was, how smooth the skin, how elegant the hair, how refined the clothes.

He was a silent man, now. No-one grew used to betrayal easily. Not even a small betrayal. The one he'd done it for was dead. The ones he did it against were living and cold. That left him nowhere. And no-one. The treachery-drunk man slept in his brain - and he only had to act a little for it to reawaken and complete himself. Once someone did something, they created a version of themself out of that deed, a version capable of it, a version birthed by it. In Bayai-the-person slept Bayai-the-traitor. He was divided, just as she was.

And here she remained. In her post. Sitting and watching the sulphur-scented ashes accumulate.

...something changed.

Was this a hallucination?

The sky remained red. It had been red since the battle began. Since she'd killed Lyur. Maybe this was a hallucination.

But to her eyes...

It seemed like Ms. Carza vo Anka came through the door.

Tanner blinked.

Carza stared.

"...good morning, Ms. Magg."

That was definitely Ms. vo Anka's voice. This definitely could be a hallucination. Could be. Seemed faintly likely. She looked older than she had when Tanner had first met her. More wrinkles. Still bony. Still thin. Still somewhat rat-like in her face and her mannerisms. No, definitely not here, just Tanner extrapolating to delude herself. Might as well be polite to the hallucination, at least.

"Good morning, Ms. vo Anka."

Was it morning?

No, don't look away from the hallucination. Damn thing might vanish if she did. And she needed the conversation. So. Ah.

"...you must've come a long way to get here."

Carza smiled slightly, twitching her fingers around one another in jerky, hesitant motions. Dressed in her usual robe, her neck concealed by a high, high collar. Tanned skin and dark, messy hair. Even as she aged, she seemed to remain possessed by a youthful jitter, a constant desire to move and seek.

"A little, yes. A little. I was... actually assisting an acquaintance. Part of the Court of the Axe, looking into some of the... cultural founders of her group."

Oh, that was just ridiculous. Court of the Axe. Her axe was right here. Nonsense.

"Ah."

"Small expedition. Can't... really seem to stop myself from them at this point. Itch when I remain still for too long, start getting unpleasant thoughts. Anyway. How... are you?"

Tanner blinked slowly.

"I'm functional, miss."

A pause. No, no, no, if she treated the hallucination unusually, the hallucination would start breaking the rules of reality. Might become a giant, or a monster, or something equally frightful. See, she had to convince the hallucination that Tanner Magg saw her as a real human. If she didn't, then anything was on the table. So. Act natural.

"I... am currently doing rather well, I mean. I'm healthy. And I apologise for not having written sooner, the postal service here is... underdeveloped. Could I get you some tea?"

Somehow Carza looked more disturbed.

"Oh, ah, no. That'll be fine. I've already had some."

Cunning. Keep convincing her she was a hallucination.

"Was the journey tolerable?"

"Oh, mostly. The snow's been melting for some time, we weathered the winter a little way away from here. Honestly, I didn't know you were assigned to this place until I arrived. I was just... helping someone find out about the history of the Court of the Axe. Where they originally came from, what their old beliefs were... there's other aspects to the investigation, but I'm interested in the anthropology of it all. I... see things rather changed since the last reports were sent out."

"A little. Are you sure you wouldn't like some tea? I can always fetch some."

"No, no, quite alright."

Silence for a long few moments. Oh, sod it. Tanner's face remained utterly flat as she spoke.

"I... also wished to apologise."

Carza's eyes widened.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I wish to apologise. I've been meaning to for a while. I thought I might... get it out of the way. I don't believe I'm fit to be a judge at this point. For... various reasons. And I understand the... inheritance you gifted to me was used for me to become a judge. Now, I... am not entirely well-versed in accounting, but I imagine I can take out some kind of loan, just to pay you back for the money you spent on my education. Happy to accept whatever interest rate you propose. I do apologise, again, for making poor use of the funds you-"

"...your mother's cousin died. I was just... giving you her pay."

"...and the others in your party."

"They really had no-one else to give it to. I couldn't claim it myself. Really, it's... not necessary to pay me back. The money was there, literally anyone other than myself could've been eligible for it, and-"

Tanner stiffened.

"Please, let me pay you back regardless. I might not be able to pay it all off, I'm... not sure what work I'm eligible for. And right now I... think I'm unemployed."

Carza stared.

"Why?"

"I don't qualify as a judge. Broken too many vows. And I've not been formally appointed to any position. So, that means no salary. Now, I can take manual work, I've worked as a fish gutter for some time now, happy to get back into that line of things. Either way, I can definitely arrange for repayments. Do you have an account I can send things to?"

She could always auction off a newborn or two. Tanner Magg, mother of a family of giants, ready to plough fields, slaughter cattle, and lift large crates for the sake of their mother's insatiable nonsense. It was odd, she felt compelled to talk about this. She had to repay Ms. vo Anka. She'd wasted her money on an education she'd squandered. If Ms. vo Anka had just given all the money to Tanner's mother, then things might've worked out a little better. Presumably. The point was, Tanner had been given money to become a judge. She'd then wasted this money by becoming an unjust tyrant who executed people to cover her tracks. By all rights, she was no longer a judge. Education thus squandered...

The point was, she needed to do this. Even if Ms. Carza was a hallucination.

Which she definitely was.

Court of the Axe, really...

"Oh."

A pause.

"Ah."

Another pause.

"Hm."

Oh, someone else did this. How... nice.

"...I was... goodness, I was just here to... say hello. I found out... I mean, I heard there was an attack by mutants. I... can see the impact it left. I didn't realise it was this..."

She trailed off weakly, still twisting her hands around one another nervously. Tanner wanted to return to her writing. Even it was nonsense mantras, she... just wanted something she understood. No idea what to do at this juncture.

"...why do you want to stop being a judge, Tanner?"

Tanner blinked with weary slowness.

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"I've committed unjust deeds, Ms. vo Anka. And gone beyond my remit."

"I saw your bodyguards on the way in."

A small flush of embarrassment.

"Sorry about them. I know they're filthy. But... once they started, it was hard to tell them to stop. We were all a little rancid after things ended, they just... kept being rancid, and got worse. I'm sorry, again. Sure you wouldn't like some tea?"

"Fine, fine, sorry, completely fine. But thank you for the offer. Of tea. I mean. Not... the loan. I really don't... need anything on that front. Again, not really my money, just... your family's money. So..."

She hesitated.

"...what happened, exactly?"

Tanner hesitated herself.

And began her confession.

It was long. It was rambling. In some parts, it was basically just gibberish. Emeralds and brass cities. The usual. Nothing of any importance, yet all of it seemed completely relevant. If Ms. vo Anka felt unsettled, disturbed, off-kilter... honestly, maybe that helped the whole affair. She needed to express this. To expel every single ounce of guilt, every unspoken thought, every nonsensical tangent that her spiralling brain went to. She grasped her own thread of memory, and started to haul, pulling, pulling, pulling, unwinding the tapestry that slept inside her brain, revealing a single, beautiful string. Progression of cause to effect. Describing a four-dimensional thought in the prosaic two-dimensional vibrations of sound killed two whole dimensions, killed half the thought, left it sterile and lifeless. And that was good. That was good. She killed her memories in front of Ms. vo Anka. The slightest provocation from a hallucination, and she started to spill, to reveal it all. The mutant-hunters. The arrival. The initial explorations. The Beldol case. The governor's death. The escalation. The cartel. The theurgists. The war. The war. She hesitated while describing it. A matter of minutes to describe something that had devoured her days, her months, her life.

She gave it all.

And the hallucination in front of her blinked. Nodded. Hummed. Frowned. Very rarely smiled. Jittered, of course. Ms. Carza was always a jitterer.

"...so I need to... I mean, maybe I stay, maybe I don't, but either way, I'm done as a judge. My career with them is morally and legally impossible to continue. And... I would like to pay you back for the good you've done me. I know this is... large, but..."

She trailed off.

Failed to find more words. Confessional Tanner wasn't a version of herself she explored often. Only to delusions. Waking up parts of her brain she hadn't used in a long, long while. Atrophied and stiff, but quickly coming back to life. Honestly, she... no. No. She hadn't ever used this... no, no, not since Eygi. And that had been false. Though, there was a fair amount of delusion here, this too was false. She was waking up Tanner as a friend of Eygi. She was waking up Eygi herself. With her broken teeth and her kind face and her lies. Waking it all up, and the idiotic Tanner who'd believed her. Blood-drunk and snow-drunk Tanner railed against this weaker, feebler creature.

...were you more honest when you were more ignorant? When did education become deliberate self-deception? Had old Tanner been more real, or just a special kind of deluded?

She wanted her axe. She wanted her cloak. Give her her symbols. Make her certain once more.

What was she thinking?

Ms. vo Anka watched her. And spoke quietly.

"...I think... you might need a holiday."

Silence.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You might need a holiday. I mean. I..."

Continual twisting of fingers.

"I... used to need a holiday. Sometimes you just... get so enmeshed in your old ways, it becomes hard to imagine everything else. Then you do something stupid. For me, I... was in my court, I knew my role, I knew everything. And then my court asked me to go an expedition. To challenge myself, expand my field. So I did. And I lost... my best friend along the way. The entire expedition died except for myself. And for a while, I wasn't even a scholar. Definitely not someone from ALD IOM. I was just... alive. It was a holiday from myself. Exhausting. Never want to repeat it. Ever. But... it definitely shook me out of my old ideas. Can't ever imagine going back."

She looked up. Eyes wide and dark as those of a deer.

"...I think you need to leave. Just for a while."

Tanner bristled slightly.

"I have too much work to do."

A pause.

"I have far too much work to do. Can't just vanish, miss. And..."

Her eyes wandered to the door. To the priests who waited on the other side. Carza stared. Then moved to the dead fire. The ashes were still warm, chunks of burned timber remained... her jittery hands were nearly invisible as they flung little pieces of kindling into the dust, stirring it up and filling the room with the stink of rotten eggs.

"Are you cold, Ms-"

"No, no. It's nothing. I just..."

She stopped filling the stove with fuel for a moment.

"...I don't know. I don't know. I mean, this is... there's no method here, Tanner. I don't see any kind of rhyme or reason. Didn't want to say, but... I came in, there's bloodstained soldiers guarding you, there's bunkers, everything seems to have exploded at some point, everyone's wearing buffalo, and no-one talks. It's odd. It's very odd. If I had more concrete advice, I promise, I'd give it. But... just for now. Just for now. Do you..."

She started piling on more and more. Frenziedly.

"...would you like to go somewhere else? I can mount another expedition. I can-"

"Miss, it's fine. I promise. I have work to do here. I..."

Ms. vo Anka advanced suddenly, placing both hands on Tanner's shoulders.

"Tanner, this all looks utterly mad. Now, I don't know if you're in trouble with the law at the moment, but I would be happy to take you to ALD IOM. It's not perfect, not at all, but it's quiet, and no-one can find you there. Everything I've seen in this colony is just... it's madness, Tanner. And I've seen madness. I know what it looks like."

She took a deep breath, steadying her voice. Tanner shrank in her seat, feeling like a child again.

"I can gladly offer passage. It's just..."

A pause.

"...this reminds me of something I saw. Years ago. In Krodaw."

Tanner sighed, very slightly.

"I've met Marana. I know about Krodaw."

"...she never met the Sleepless. Not really."

Silence.

"I did. I met one of their leaders. You... remind me very strongly of him. Him, and the last governor of Krodaw, Marana's father. Just the way you act. Same.. air of someone who committed too hard a long time ago and can't turn back, or thinks they can't. Same air of someone who has this mad image of what the world should look like and can't even tell where it starts being a fantasy. Now, Tanner, I know all of this must seem absolutely important, but you really ought to listen to me. If you leave this colony, you can go an expedition with me, you can go to ALD IOM, all of this can be settled, your city won't touch you out there. I... didn't want to mention it, but the newspapers are talking about this. This colony. Where we stopped for the winter, they were still getting some newspapers every month or so, and... people keep talking about how this one colony seems to have gone completely dark, massive worries about what has happened to it, politicians making noises regarding sending an expeditionary force... Tanner, listen. If you stay here, the Fidelizhi will be here soon enough. Once the snow has melted and the rivers are clear, they'll be coming out to investigate. We got here first, they won't be far behind. I would strongly recommend not being here when they arrive."

A pause. A gathering of breath. The hallucination stopped talking. Leaving Tanner to think. To think. To think. Strategy, tactics, plotting. More schemes. She could already see it. Bursting into life over the dead mass of snow. Endless calamity. Her mind clicked into a childish format - into a form where only catastrophe existed, only catastrophe. Everything spiralling to the worst of all possible worlds. And she saw so very, very many worlds where all manner of horrors happened. Executions. Rebellions. Revolutions. Guerilla war. Banditry. Torture. Interrogation. Doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on her mistakes. She almost... almost washed it away. Almost drowned it in the bright calm of her current mindset. Crush it with layers of authority. Smother it to death with all the veils she'd accumulated over time, garotte the damn feeling out of existence. The feeling was small and precious, like a tiny pearl nestled in her head, like the tiniest of embers.

Carza's wide, dark eyes stared at her. Oily and opaline.

Tanner gritted her teeth.

And blew on the ember.

Come on. Catastrophes. More. All the childish urges she thought she'd overpowered. Wash it away, imagine being a child again. All the tortures Fidelizh might inflict. All the ruin they might visit on her mother and father. All the terror, all the shame. Her name erased from records. Her memory in the minds of her tutors, Halima and the like, being barbed and sharp. Unpleasant to recollect. Imagine becoming... becoming like one of the people Marana and Carza described. The Sleepless. The ruinous creatures of the sweltering forest. The madmen who had purged a colony, then set about to purging themselves. Slaughter on a massive scale, executed with cult-like zealotry, mixed with debauched glee. Imagine making that. Imagine being Tanner the Sleepless. Imagine it. She was always capable of imagining this. Always.

But now someone was prompting her.

Now her mind had clearly strained itself to the point where it hallucinated critics for her. Inventing them when none presented themselves. Now she had... had precedent.

And slowly, the hallucination started back up.

"...just..."

Tanner overrode her. Overrode her offers. Her ways out. Her continuing adventures.

Something hot burst out of her chest.

Something... something defiant.

Something she hadn't felt since she first decided to take over the colony. Since she emerged from the bone orchard with the first flickering of madness in her head. The same feeling of being strained beyond all limits, beyond the breaking point... and breaking. No, not breaking.

Detonating.

"No."

Carza stared. No response.

"No. I don't..."

A pause.

"I don't want to go on an expedition. I don't want to go to ALD IOM, or anywhere exotic."

She stood suddenly, complete madness animating her limbs.

"I want to..."

Her eyes were darting from side to side, erratic, unpredictable, reflecting a mind that was... oh, gods, it was like stretching muscles she hadn't used in months, there was stress, there was exertion, there was complete and paralytic relief. Her voice rose yet higher.

"I want to fish. My father fished. I used to, I used to gut them, too. Gutted hundreds a day after school. Mother picked the bones from under my fingernails when I got home and was too tired to do it myself. Too tired and clumsy. That was the last time, I think, I was properly, honestly happy, no deception involved, no fake friends, no blindings, nothing. I would like to fish, Ms. vo Anka. Anything that isn't an eel. Trout, herring, carp, flounder, monkfish, even lobster, I'll fish anything. Give me a harpoon, I'll get you whales. But no eels. Never eels. Lovely creatures. I don't want to go to your city, I don't want to join you on your work. Just let me find a river, and give me a couple of lines."

She started to pace. Might as well. Her mind had clearly snapped. She was hallucinating people in startling detail, obviously she was long gone. And a mad ruler was no ruler at all. She'd started. She just needed a prompt. The collapse. The collapse. A dam broke in her mind. A reservoir emptied with tremendous force.

Surprising how little it took. Just the right nudge to shift those crucial cornerstones.

"That's all I want. That's all I've wanted for all my life. I don't want to be a judge. I don't want to be this. I don't want any of it. You know, I don't even want to talk to Eygi. I know you don't know who she is, but that's fine, I don't want to talk to her. I don't want to. Who gives a damn about closure, there's no such thing as closure, just more opportunities to ask different questions, closure is for the dead. I want to fish for the rest of my stupid, stupid life. That's it. I don't need to be respected. I don't need to be feared. There are far too many Tanners living in my head, there's Tanner as murderer, Tanner as governor, Tanner as tyrant, Tanner as judge, I don't want them. I just want to be a child again. Things were simpler then. Everything was. I'd like to commit multiple acts of homicide, Ms. vo Anka, I'd like to kill all the other Tanners. I don't want them. I don't want bright calm or incarnating thought into action in a clear stream or remaking myself into something without precedent or listening to the damn shadowy me that came over that hill. I don't want violence. I don't want any of this. Give me a line, a road, a knife, maybe a few other things, and I will be happy, Ms. vo Anka. Give me a sky that isn't red. I will gladly pay you back for your investment in my future, but I may have to do it with barrels of salted fish."

A mad laugh escaped her throat.

When was the last time she laughed?

"I can't even have children at this stage, not with how mutated I am. Can't even satisfy my damn womanhood, can't do what each and every one of my ancestresses has managed. I'm utterly useless, I'm too mutated to do anything a human would, and I don't want to be... be this. I'm a dead end. I can't give my mother grandchildren. My father's legacy dies with me. I just want to fish, in that case, if that's completely fine. If there's any money left, please, give it to my mother. That's all I can do for her. There's nothing left. I can't give her grandchildren, I can't give her the pride of a child who's a good judge, I can't give her anything but whatever remains of the money I've wasted. That's it. And with that done, I'd quite like to leave. If there's no other obligations for me to fulfil, I'd like to go."

A pause.

"I think this is right. Eels do this sort of thing. A clock snaps, and now they have to lose their stomachs and swim across the ocean. They don't know why. They just have to do it. Not even any preamble. That's... what's happening. I'm just going to another part of my life. I didn't get to decide when it happened. It just did. Now I have to go along with it. That's all I can do. I'm just being an eel, and now I'm... I'm about to swim across the ocean. That's it."

She inhaled, a long shuddering breath that made her ribs ache, exerted for the first time since the battle.

"I just want to go and fish."

Her voice emerged in a venomous, relieved hiss. Barely comprehensible. An animal sound emerging from a strained, strained mind. Ms. vo Anka was utterly silent. Of course she was, she was a hallucination, and Tanner had stolen her voice, added it to her own, made it rasp. Giving herself a chorus. A flush of shame ran through her with rude abruptness.

"And... I don't want to squander your gift. I'm sorry for all of that. I really am."

Madness pulsed through her veins. Beautiful madness. Hot madness. The madness of momentum. Wave had been building up for some time. Carza had been the last straw, the final rumble to set it going. And now Tanner sustained it.

"But on account of the fact that you're a hallucination, I think you might accept my apology, on account of being invented. So I also hallucinate you forgiving me, if that's at all right and proper. Please and thank you."

Carza blinked very slowly indeed.

"Oh."

"I do apologise for all of that. Again. A barrel - no, several barrels - of salted fish every few months. Depending on what I can get, and how much salt I have. Might need time to get myself situated, but once things are stable, the fish will be yours, I promise that. Give me an address, I'll ship them to you. Or I can sell them and give you the money. I can't imagine there'll be much."

Another mad laugh.

"Come to think of it..."

She strode over to the burning stove, and kicked it, sending showers of sparks over the floor. Carza jumped back, squeaking like an exceptionally large, thin mouse. Tanner smiled wildly, and kicked it again, sending yet more orange-red comets scattering throughout the room. Some skittered and died immediately. Some lingered for a few moments. And some... some remained. Began to gift their glow to the wood. The scent of fire began to enter the room. Oh, good.

"I've clearly gone quite mad, if my hallucinations have become this complex. So, if it's not terribly inconvenient to you, I'd like to burn this house down and run away."

"...oh."

"Yes. I think I will. Rationally speaking, it makes sense. Been planning something like this for a while. Destroys anything inconvenient. Fakes my death, maybe? That would be good, if that worked."

A pause.

"I'd also like to get a few people. Is that totally alright?"

"Oh. Ah."

Carza twisted her hands. Tanner twitched.

"I mean, fetch them. Not get them. I don't want anyone dead. Even myself. Promise. That was only ever a... a thing, a small thing. Not real. Didn't count."

Carza looked very nervous all of a sudden.

"Please, do what you think is proper, don't... do anything... ah..."

Don't kill yourself.

Tanner's tone was warm with gratitude. Warm. Her voice was warm again. She was thawing.

"Thank you, Ms. vo Anka."

Tanner kicked the stove once more, sending yet more sparks... ah. There it was. A few blooms of light amidst the house. The burning was starting. The heat of the sun had started to dry the wood, just enough to make it beautifully flammable. Adrenaline woke up in her again. Her thoughts were running in odd loops. Fish. Fish. She wanted to fish. No-one could stop her. She was a machine that converted thought into action without a single filter between the two. And right now, she was thinking about becoming a fisherwoman again. She never wanted anything else but that. She wanted simplicity. That state where she was performing actions so repetitive and comprehensible that she could experience nothing but moment upon moment of actual oblivion. Using her entire body and mind to drag fish from the water, to gut them, to string them up and ready them for processing. Until she could act without thought. Until the actions seemed to govern her, rather than the other way around. The same actions as combat. The same adrenaline and physical exertion... none of the terror. None of the risk of death.

None of the bright calm.

Her smile was unending as she flung a bundle of papers into the gathering fire.

"Don't go north, Ms. vo Anka. Don't go north."

"...why not?"

"There's a brass city there. Maybe. Used to be. Can't tell. The synapse put the thoughts in my head. Made me remember what it did. A little. There's a city up there. Don't go. Don't wake it up. We can't kill them, not really. The titans are still alive, we know they are. The synapses... we can't even destroy it properly, it just keeps burning, keeps burning indigo, I think. Maybe that's like the red sky. We can't kill the muscles, we can't kill the synapses, I don't know if we can kill the brain, and I don't want to think about it. Don't go north. Please."

She froze suddenly.

"Can you promise?"

Carza's voice came back quickly.

"I promise."

"You promise?"

"I promise, I promise. I won't go north."

"Good. I won't go north either. And no-one else will. There's a pit in the fields near here - don't go down there, the bone orchard is still alive, probably gotten worse, and the Rekidans are down there too, the last of them. Mad as mad can be, all the sane ones died. Just leave them, let the orchard eat them, let them eat each other, let the river fill back up. Promise?"

"Promise."

"Don't go down there. Don't go north. Don't go to the pale in the middle of the city. Don't go to the calderas, they make your skin burn without using any fire. In fact, I'd say to leave Rekida. I should've. I think I will. I think..."

She trailed off, pondering her next move. Suddenly, it snapped into relief. She knew what she had to do.

"I may have to flee through the window, Ms. vo Anka."

Silence.

"...uh. If you think that's best."

She was eyeing the door. Silly hallucination. She didn't need a door.

"I think it is, yes. Now, I know you're not real, but could you..."

"Delay your bodyguards?"

A blink.

"Ah. That might be for the best. Could you just make excuses, then run for the hills? Say that... ah..."

Carza spoke suddenly and with the vaguest hint of panic in her voice.

"Oh, don't worry, I'll improvise. I... oh, oh, I know, I'll say that you... dropped a candle? Or scattered sparks? I mean, it's probably not perfect, definitely not perfect-"

Tanner stepped towards the door, flinging it open. Her voice rose to a yell.

"I demand you clear the house immediately!"

The sound of tromping feet filled the air. Right.

"That should give you a bit of breathing room, Ms. vo Anka. Say that-"

"I'll run out of the house, screaming my head off, saying there was a fire, and you were trying to rescue a few things. Though it's really not perfect in the slightest, or-"

"It doesn't matter. It really doesn't. They'll believe whatever they want to believe. The civilians will think I died in a fire. That's fine. Though I'd recommend clearing out as quickly as possible, Ms. vo Anka. Just to make sure they don't blame you."

"...oh. Yes."

Carza kept blinking.

"This is all rather sudden. Are you sure you'd not rather sit down?"

Tanner shook her head firmly.

"No, no, I don't think so. I need to get my friends."

"Your friends?"

Tanner struck the stove again, sending another shower of sparks... oh, there was an idea. She swept her desk clean of pages, flinging them out and creating a carpet of deeply flammable material. A few tongues of flame were already starting to emerge from papery gums, tasting the air with the eagerness of the starving.

"Oh, yes. Yan-Lam, she needs to learn how to fish. And All-Name, he's so completely miserable, he needs some honest work. And Marana, she needs retirement. You know, I never act like this. I like planning in advance, I like being paranoid. Keeps me safe. But... I mean, I took over this colony because I thought 'I'm the best suited to do it, I might as well'. I took over because I wanted to, and I thought through zero consequences. Assumed I'd die, really. I lived, though. Very unfortunate. Maybe I should grab Bayai as well. He might want to leave this all behind."

She clapped her hands suddenly.

"And the mutant! The girl! I need to take her! She's loathsome, but they'll burn her otherwise, and that would be awful. Don't you think."

Carza picked over her syllables carefully.

"May-be?"

"Maybe! Yes. Maybe. I'll let her out, she can do her own... well, whatever she does, I suppose. Either way. I need to be off."

The fire was rising.

"I'm going to burn this house down, leap out of the window - not too high, I'll be fine, I've survived explosions - you distract the guards, and I go and fetch the people I want to retire with. I'm clearly unsuited for this position, I'm hallucinating you, and in such absolute detail. And I never wanted the position. Oh, gods, it feels good to say all of this. I don't want to do this. I do not want to be a judge or a governor or anything else. Very sorry, are you sure you wouldn't like some tea?"

"Uh."

Tanner strode closer, very abruptly, and Carza almost clambered out of her seat from sheer fright.

"Thank you. Again."

A pause.

"...this is definitely a sign. I've snapped from stress. I need to retire. Can't go home. Can't do anything else in my life. Might as well leave and fish and read about whatever I want to. That's what I'll do. Are you alright with that? I mean, you started me on coming out here. I think you should see me conclude it."

She was talking more than she'd done since the battle. Oh, gods, this was strange. This was wonderful. This was terrifying.

What was happening?

The fire was growing higher and higher and higher. Brighter and brighter. Were those knocks at the door? Maybe. Who cared?

"Could you distract them?"

Carza stood slowly. Placed her hands over Tanner's.

The fire crackled merrily as it ate up all that she'd been.

"Go on. Please. You... clearly need it."

"Do I?"

"Yes. Definitely. You look mad."

"I think I am mad, Ms. vo Anka."

"...I wouldn't argue with that conclusion. Just... do what makes you happy. Without hurting anyone."

"Really?"

"Oh, gods, yes. Don't... do whatever you're doing now. I mean, if doing this drove you to... ah, this, then it's probably best to stop doing... this. You jump out of that window and hunt for your friends. If you're certain you'll survive."

"They're not... uh, really friends, Ms. vo Anka. I don't really... know how to... I mean..."

"Just grab them and run. Go and fish."

"Are you sure?"

Sudden trepidation in her voice.

"I mean, I do have a lot of work, and spring is coming, and..."

"Go."

"...quite right. Spring's here. Spring. They're ready to start resetting. See, once they stop being winter-people, they can move on. They can sober up from being blood-drunk and snow-drunk. They need the shift in season to mark a shift in mentality. It just makes sense. So, this is really the best time. You promise you'll delay the guards?"

"I'll do my best."

"You'll be safe?"

"I have guards of my own. And they're very large."

"Wonderful. Oh, yes, I remember them. I think."

Tanner did something she'd never done before. Seen Marana do it from time to time, maybe. It seemed like something Marana would do. And she felt daring.

She leaned forward and placed two pecks on either side of Carza's face, brusque and professional. Animated purely by adrenaline. Carza blinked several times in quick succession.

"Goodbye, Ms. vo Anka. Thank you."

"...oh, that's... quite alright. Quite alright. Good luck."

"Thank you."

A pause.

"...can I... can I have your permission to run away?"

Carza blinked a few more times.

"Of... course. You have my permission."

"And rest?"

"And rest."

"And fish?"

"And fish. And anything else you want."

Tanner smiled.

She was free.

The fire was intolerably warm. Oh, she was ready.

She could leave.

She could do it.

She was moving to the window.

She was ready to run away from it all and...

And live.

She was ready to begin. She was ready to leave it all behind, the madness, the intoxication, the endless repetitive sequence of nonsensical tasks. She was ready to start her life. No more obligations. No more duties. Everything that she could do had been taken away by her own deeds, and no redemption was possible. No more judging or governing. No more fighting. Just meaningless mundane activities. She could talk to Yan-Lam, help her recover. She could talk to Marana, and ask for her forgiveness. She could talk to Bayai and work through his betrayal. She could talk to All-Name, and tell him that he didn't need to be a living sacrifice, there was more. And more than that, he'd go mad, just like she had.

Tanner Magg was ready to begin.

Carza vo Anka was watching her with wide, dark eyes. Pools of oil. Deer's eyes.

Ready to begin. Ready to begin. Ready to start her life for good. To leave behind everything and everyone. To die and be reborn. To purge her mind of all other influences and see what remained. Peel the onion until an infinitely small core remained - an infinite authenticity.

She was ready.

She

Was

Ready.

She sprinted for the window.

Oh, gods, she was ready to begin.

Her face wasn't flat.

It split into a smile that she imagined could never end.

Fire.

Cold air.

Ground.

Running.

Tanner Magg smiled as she ran over the green-white tapestry of the land, watched by the kindly stone eyes of enormous statues. So fast her legs were invisible. Unrestrained as a snow-blind horse. For a moment... silence, and the whirling of winds. Deer watched her. Carza watched her. No-one else. The colony was empty. Just her, just her and the fires rising behind her, consuming the house.

It was abrupt. Unplanned. Silly.

And all her best-worst decisions had been made that way. All of this had been a troubled dream. A strange nightmare. The sky was blue again, no more infinite suns, just one. And it was kind and yellow, not cruel and red. The city was just a city. The land was just a land. Rekida was another name on a map, and meant just as much. The statues were beautiful - and nothing else. What duties remained? As a judge, she was a failure. As a governor, she was resigning. As a daughter, she was barren and shameful and mad. She had nothing left to give. She had nothing left to offer. Her thoughts started to end. The loops, for now, were closing off. The widening gyre narrowed, narrowed... shut off. Suddenness and adrenaline defined her. A bundle of horseteeth on her waist jangled, jangled, jangled. Snow-blind and snow-mad. Free and unrestrained. What more remained? Everything before now had been a dream. Time to wake up.

She ran...

She ran into the snow with all the natural instinct of a snow-crane, running as if drawn by a leash, running as if it was all she was meant to do, conquering the earth with each stride she took, each patch of land forgotten after she left it behind. Ahead of her, everything. Behind her, nothing and no-one. No sound but her own breathing. She'd conquered, she'd killed, she'd betrayed, she'd overseen and overcome. In every way, she had done all she wanted to do, then what she didn't want to do, then a little more of whatever lay outside those categories. Mantras drained from her and left nothing behind. There was nothing left in her at all. She was spent, drained, empty. And that meant she was ready to be filled up once more, with something new, with something bright, with something she chose for herself.

This was it.

This was all.

Tanner Magg was ready to begin the world.

Tanner Magg was ready to begin the world.

image [https://file.garden/ZOfiDnxLnEcyOIw2/Final%20Photo.jpg]