CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX - AMBASSADORIAL OVERTURES

Didn't take long. It helped, having an assistant - Yan-Lam was one of those people with a simple ability to buckle down and work for hours and hours with precisely zero complaints. If Tanner was anyone else, she might've let her work on and on and on until she passed out over the papers they were going through. But... she was familiar with the attitude. Very familiar. Her first job was gutting fish by the river, she was working with people usually twice her age, with hands practically gauntleted in calluses from years upon years of work. They could slice open a fish, rip out the guts, slip the bones from the flesh, and have everything sorted in a matter of seconds. Their knives were never dull, could cut a finger down to the bone with an idle flick. They could work for a whole day without resting more than a few minutes, never making a single mistake, no matter how hard the work. In all her time there, she'd seen one incident where someone had cut his palm open, and he'd been an older man with too much liquor in his system. Tanner had worked and worked and worked, never complaining, until her fingers refused to move and her wrist burned. Sometimes she'd been terrified of waking up with permanently clawed hands that'd never hold a knife again, like the invalids she saw from time to time begging on the street. Never complain, though. The others didn't. So she wouldn't.

And Tanner had been chosen by the gods to be large and powerful. Put bluntly, her body could keep up with her neuroses. Yan-Lam was... well, for scale, and Tanner would never do this, but if the time came to run from the colony in secret, she could feasibly stuff her into a decent-sized suitcase for ease of transport.

Not that she'd ever do that. That'd be inhumane.

...unless she filled the suitcase with blankets, poked a few holes... saw people carrying rabbits and cats around like that, and those things were infamously delicate, plus, only lived a fraction of a human lifespan. Put bluntly, Yan-Lam was probably pretty durable, still had the resources in her for... another fifty, sixty years of life, maybe seventy if she was especially lucky. Get a large enough box, sturdy enough to hold a large weight, could be feasible.

Gods, she needed to stop thinking about the logistics of stuffing Yan-Lam inside a suitcase.

...better to consider it, though. Just in case. Evacuations and whatnot.

No. Definitely not.

Anyway. Tanner knew that Yan-Lam would work until she passed out. Knew this, because she'd do it, hell, she'd done it from time to time. Learned her limits the hard way. And could clearly see Yan-Lam's. Every so often, she told the girl to go and make tea or coffee, or just to stretch her legs for a bit. The girl never enjoyed it. But it got her away from the table. Got her doing something more relaxing. Tanner never took any breaks, of course. Drank the tea or coffee that Yan-Lam brought her, but never ate anything more than a few slices of bread (no butter, that'd be too decadent). And copied out all her notes all over again. There was a peace in this. A peace in the click-click-click of her automatic quill, the endless smooth flow of ink onto paper, the squinting of her eyes behind their many lenses. She felt almost like she was back in the inner temple, writing out her judgements on issues which seemed so... infinitely small compared to this. Nothing existed beyond the law, in this moment. Nothing but the slow execution of logic and evidence, the deliberate construction of elaborate conspiracy on paper, in the tiniest letters she could muster. Using the governor's office almost felt right, in this case. Odd, sitting in his chair. Odd, using his desk. But... she'd unravelled it, hadn't she? She'd done a good job? Canima said she had, Marana had even given her permission to sleep last night, she'd... if she wrote out these findings, and kept them preserved, then she could be confident in having done what she was meant to do.

Not as reassuring a concept as it'd once been. But it was something. And if she sat in this office, pored over these papers, and spoke very rarely indeed... slowly, slowly, she felt the pain in her wrists and arm fade, the ache in her legs decay to a pleasant sort of numbness, and the cool blue lights of the inner temple started to form around her in vague constellations. And if she drifted enough away... she could even feel shadowy hands falling over her shoulders, a figure leaning over to examine her work, looking for turns of phrase useful in her own. Eygi settled around her like a shroud, silent and warming. And...

Tanner shivered. Should be more comforting.

Lyur's words kept rattling around her head, though. Eygi hadn't told her about her wedding. Eygi hadn't... said anything. She rarely said anything to begin with.

Just keep working.

By the end of the day, she had her spiralling chains of logic spelled out as compellingly as possible, in three separate documents. One was kept for referencing. Another to submit to Mr. Canima. A third to hide, though she was still working out where might work. Governor's safe, potentially. Either way. She had it all - the evidence of the bouncers being corrupt, the numerous incidents of murder and intimidation she'd seen concealed in the records, the confession provided by Lyur to a judge, the attempt on her life, Vyuli's story, corroborating evidence by Tal-Sar and Pyulmila (alias Tom-Tom), the Dyen business... she was tactful. Very tactful. Didn't mention how the governor's bureaucratic obscurantism had basically meant he blackmailed himself, allowing the cartel to operate under everyone's noses. Didn't mention how the cartel was allowed to flourish because he'd wiped out, by stealth, the other cartels, and had paved the way for their rise to a position of authority. He'd removed their competition, then provided fertile grounds for them to develop, then put nails through his feet to stop him chasing after them, let them run circles around him for years. She didn't point this out. If she did, Mr, Canima would likely order everything burned.

But in her third copy. The secret copy... there, she laid it all out. The whole rotten process.

And as she worked... she found one issue. Just one. It was odd, she thought... she thought the bureaucratic business would be over by now. That she'd passed this period of the investigation. What more was there to learn? What could she find that she hadn't found previously? She had all the data, her revelations had just helped to frame it better. At this stage, she suspected it was just going to be revelation upon revelation upon revelation - she'd made the gunpowder, gathered the paper, now she just had to watch the fireworks. But... something was coming up. Something odd. Just as she reviewed the data.

"Yan-Lam?"

The maid looked up from her own work - she was a neat scribe, or rather, she was intensely careful and rarely made the same mistake twice. Just helping copy out some of the data in long, elaborate tables.

"Yes, miss?"

"...have a look at this data."

Tanner pushed over the last sheet she was working on, resisting the urge to chew her quill like a perplexed student. Yan-Lam peered sleepily at the endless rows, frowned slightly, and pinched her wrist to sharpen up her focus. Her eyes brightened, and she scanned with significantly greater clarity. Alright, maybe Tanner had accidentally taught her that move. But it was a good move.

"This is... the discrepancies with shipments, yes? Food vanishing before it reached the cold-houses, that sort of thing?"

"And a few other areas, yes. Smeltery reports, mostly. We assumed there was some level of corruption going on, seemed to indicate there was something happening beneath the governor's nose."

"...yes, miss. Is this... related to the cartel you were talking about?"

"More or less."

A pause.

"...you really never knew about the cartel? You lived in the shantytown your whole life, but..."

The girl shrugged guiltily.

"I'm sorry, miss. Shantytown's large, and... any criminal worth their salt doesn't exactly advertise. Erlize crack down on street gangs every other week."

"So... to survive as a criminal group, you have to be incredibly quiet, very subtle, and adept at manipulating law enforcement."

"I believe so, miss. And I never... exactly engaged with that sort. Nor did father. Kept his head down, worked quietly. Me too."

Her eyes flickered with a little sadness, that rapidly hardened into cold resolve, cold enough to make Tanner internally flinch, even as her face remained adamantly stoic. It was... fair enough, really. Surprising, the number of things you could overlook if you kept your head down. Tanner could tell you about how her lodge worked, but the internal dynamics? The broader situation of Jovan? High policy? No clue. Literally none. She didn't even know how the Golden Door interfaced with the Golden Parliament, never had a reason to, and liked to stay out of their territory. If she was asked which political party was dominant in Fidelizh right now, she'd be stumped as stumped could be. Because it was above her head - a head she was content to keep as low as possible, though not so low that she had her ear to the streets. Her head was... roughly at waist-height, then. Walking with her back at a strict ninety-degrees. And that was a safe position for her to be in. Very aerodynamic.

She sighed.

"...feels like the Erlize have just trained up people that... are resistant to interrogation, never snitch, known to hide their culture and beliefs as a matter of habit... and produce criminals that are very good at staying hidden."

Yan-Lam smiled very, very faintly.

"Honoured judge, I think that's why they started settling this place. Shantytown was complicated and hot and awful, so they dump us out here where we can't hurt anyone. Better than killing us, or just throwing us out."

Sounded about right.

"Anyway. These discrepancies. The cartel, they're... there's shadows of them, yes, but they're still being subtle. They own the cold-houses, I know that much. And they have people inside them, usually hidden underground, who obviously need to siphon food in order to stay alive. Not too many, though, I don't... think it's entirely feasible to have a whole underground army. Still, it's something. So, stockpiling, and supplying a few people who would be exiled immediately if they were found."

A pause.

"So... why are there other discrepancies? What's wrong with the smelter?"

Yan-Lam blinked.

"...I'm not sure, miss. You... saw their base, didn't you?"

"I did. I did. And there's food there, lots of food. Lots of pelts, too. Let's assume there's weapon stockpiles, bullets..."

The maid shook her head suddenly.

"Don't think they could do that easily, miss."

"You don't?"

She flushed slightly.

"...Sersa Bayai got all panicked when you vanished. Heard him tearing through the mansion. Heard him talking about... stockpiles. Colony doesn't have places to make guns, he said. Not many. Not quickly. Need a big factory for that sort of thing. And gunpowder... I mean, maybe, but..."

"So... unless they were building a giant arms factory, they're not going to be stockpiling that many weapons."

"No, miss."

"...and building a giant arms factory is out of the question. No space for it. Would be easily noticed. Doubt they even have the expertise."

"Seems so, miss."

These discrepancies were too high. Much too high. And... alright, the disappearances and the exiles and the laundered backgrounds - all of this was concealed by the governor's secret war when he first arrived, which created a haze of mangled records that could easily disguise actual criminals, alongside his own criminal activities. On paper, both looked very similar. But... this, the siphoning of resources, what was concealing that? What smokescreen was making this tolerable, because she had precisely zero doubt that the governor would be aware of the loss of resources if it was this dramatic. Hell, she'd be surprised if the cartel was going to be this unsubtle, usually... well, for them to be alive this long, they had to be subtle, even if they'd recently made a host of blunders inflicted by an incompetent daughter and a deeply psychotic bouncer. To their credit, though, if they'd managed to kill her, they'd have basically killed the one person who knew everything, and could promptly move on to kill the sources she'd used for various details. Bit of arson for the ledgers, kill Tal-Sar, probably remove Mr. Canima if he got too uppity, then sit back and wait for spring. Piece of, pardon her language, piss.

Point was - the governor would notice these losses. The cartel would never inflict these losses, unless they were more incompetent than she'd ever suspected. And if they were that incompetent, they wouldn't have survived this long. And it wasn't like she could attribute it to one erratic actor - this was systemic, this was deliberate. Had to require a very large number of people doing their jobs.

Something else was happening. And she thought, again, of the lie the governor had told. The lie about the snow fields. No frozen rivers to kill travellers. But there were fissures that emanated steam from the earth. So... what was he hiding? And why did he only need to hide it during winter? During spring and summer, those fields were open for business. But not winter. Why?

She looked up suddenly from her work, hands flickering to conceal pages, to fold up everything. Someone was coming. Striding across the carpet confidently, hands moving for the door of the office... Bayai, maybe, his steps were usually that strident, and-

Mr. Canima pushed the door open.

His face was a rictus of focus. And Tanner froze immediately as his gaze fixed on her. The whole horrible world came flooding back, and all she could see was Mr. Canima ordering Bayai to fetch enough fuel to burn Lantha down to ash. The mutant tide. The knife in the dark. The cold. The cold. The petty little shelter she'd built from routine and paper vanished immediately, and she could see clearly just how fragile it'd always been.

And he'd... gods, he'd moved quickly.

Something was wrong.

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"Yes, sir? We're still preparing-"

"Maid. Leave."

Yan-Lam moved practically faster than the eye could see, vanishing from the office and closing the door behind her, moving with all the soundlessness she could muster. Tanner felt a tiny spark of annoyance... that was immediately drowned out by nervousness when Mr. Canima's intense eyes fell upon her once more. He stalked over towards the desk - she could meet his gaze at eye level, but he still seemed to tower above. He was clenching one side of his jaw over and over again, a tiny pulse that resembled some erratic gland twitching away. His tie was very slightly askew.

Tanner was honestly afraid she was about to be attacked by a man having a nervous breakdown.

And just as quickly... he sat in Yan-Lam's vacated chair, crossing his legs, smoothed his face, and all was well. Cold as a glacier, and just as inevitable.

"Honoured judge. I apologise for the interruption. But I find myself having a tiny crisis - and your services are required."

Oh, gods, she was about to get all her organs stolen to keep him alive to see the spring. He was going to crawl down her throat and replace her spine with his entire body. He was going to reveal himself to be a secret mutant, and was going to rip out her brain. He was going to talk to her about emotions.

"I've been... hazarding communication with the cartel. This... Vyuli, his moles are present in multiple places in the colony, and I've been using them to convey messages. The necessity of meeting. The desire to prevent conflict. I have no doubt he senses that something is awry, that our actions are informed by other priorities. Until now, I have done nothing but offer him hints, through every source I can find."

A pause.

"He has replied."

Tanner almost snapped her automatic quill. Vyuli. The old man. So practised with torture that he automatically removed his clothes to stop them being stained with blood. Willing to torture her to death just to make sure she wasn't hiding anything from him. The saddest eyes she'd ever seen on a man. Her skin crawled at the memory, and her breathing seemed to grow louder in her ears. Her hands slipped under the desk, and she began to knead her skirt. For a second, she wanted Yan-Lam to be in charge, to order Mr. Canima to kill every last one of the brutes, bury them in their tunnels, just don't make her see them again.

A second. And she had herself a little more under control. Outwardly, she showed no signs. And that meant that she was truly, truly afraid.

"I see. And what did he say?"

"He's... disinclined to negotiate with me, in person. And, to be blunt, we both hold enough cards to be dangerous to the other. He has all the food, and a fair number of loyalists. I have the soldiery, however many can be counted on, and authority in Fidelizh. If either of us chooses to, we can destroy the other completely. I can bring enough force down on this place come spring to erase him. And he can kill me, starve the colony, probably incite a successful revolt. It won't last long. The city would wipe him out immediately. But..."

He paused, and mulled over his words a little.

"The point is, we're both dangerous to each other. Both of us have hostages, proverbially speaking. He doesn't want to meet me. Understandable. He doesn't know what I have at my disposal, not everything. Nor does he know me as completely as he would like. A personal encounter would strip him of many layers of defence, and place him squarely in my territory."

Justification, justifications. He was very good at making his weakness seem entirely understandable and completely reasonable. Very good indeed. Tanner blinked slowly.

"So... what's going to happen? Will you negotiate via messengers?"

"I don't believe either of us would enjoy that. Couriers are terribly unreliable. Ripe opportunity for... a rogue actor to intervene."

Lyur. No doubt Vyuli knew there was something rotten in his cartel. No doubt he wanted to avoid being vulnerable in any way to the shocking incompetence that had brought him this close to ruin, that had exposed his whole damn operation.

"I see."

Mr. Canima stared at her.

Tanner blinked.

"...so, is there..."

"He wishes for you to act as a go-between."

Tanner paled very slightly, and twisted her skirt so hard it almost tore. Ropes on her wrists. A knife slithering over her arm with lazy ease. Sad eyes. Uncannily sharp teeth. Corridors of meat and bone. Endless pelts. Running in the dark. Dying in the cold. Her heart began to beat faster. Felt... like there was something around her throat, a heavy collar, clenching tighter, restricting her breathing very, very slightly, more and more as each moment passed. No. No. Wouldn't. Never seeing him again. If he died right now, she wouldn't mourn, she'd let out a sigh of relief and keep moving on with her life. Not seeing him again. He'd take her away and finish the job to make a point. Remove his jacket, his tie, his shirt, his shoes, everything he didn't want stained.

Knives. Knives in the dark.

No.

"I would... rather not, sir."

The fact that there wasn't a quiver in her voice was a miracle and a half. Even Mr. Canima seemed a little surprised - if only by the tiny variation in the height of his eyebrows, a variation that ended a second later.

His lips thinned a second after that, as he clearly resolved on his course of action.

"It is... naturally, a difficult matter. I wouldn't give it to you, if I felt there was another option. If there was more time, I could negotiate further. If there were more resources, I could explore alternative options. If there were lower stakes, I could pressure him to accept."

His eyes were flat and dead as panes of glass.

"We have no time. We have few resources. We have intensely high stakes. As a judge, I am requesting your services as a mediator in an ongoing dispute. I will do all I can to ensure your safety. If he attempts to hurt or kill you, he'll have a war."

Liar. Liar. Wouldn't do that. He'd do his best to defuse things, to negotiate down, to keep the colony going, to keep his precious bureaucracy intact, he wouldn't sacrifice it all over a single judge. She was a canary in a coal mine. Her entire job was to check to see if Vyuli was reasonable. Would he kill her? Would he let her live? Was he a psychotic man obsessed with revenge, or was he someone that could do business? Her entire being was staked on a man who'd been... been willing...

She felt sick.

"I..."

Was this her duty? Was she expected to do this?

Would she be remembered poorly if she refused? Black marks in her record. Coward. That's what they'd call her. Canima's gaze... she switched between being enraged and being intimidated at a moment's notice with him, a coin turning in mid-air, one side, then the other, then the other, over and over. She was angry at even being asked. She was intimidated by someone more senior than herself. She was angry at Canima and Vyuli and the mutants. She was intimidated by the weight of expectations. The threat of shame. The threat of... of letting down everyone around her. The whole damn colony. The papers in front of her seemed as flimsy as ancient silk, and just as useful. No shelter provided by her work. No false inner temple to build around her. And Eygi's shadowy hands had long-since left her shoulders.

Three marks. Left wrist. Right wrist. Left arm. Three bloody mouths carved into her.

Each of them stung. Extended fingers of numbness throughout her body, little reminders that there were parts missing, that fibres had been cut and the fragile leather bag of skin had been split. If she moved too much, maybe the rents would widen, and she'd peel herself into nothingness.

Don't make her do it again. Please.

She gritted her teeth.

Looked up from her work.

And her voice came out as something very low indeed.

"I would like some guidance on what you'd like me to focus on when I meet him. And I'd prefer to finish these notes beforehand. Your copy is almost done, sir."

Mr. Canima, once more, looked faintly surprised. And when he spoke, his voice had... something odd in it, that she struggled to recognise.

"It's an admirable thing to do."

Tanner didn't reply. Trying to get her hands away from her skirt, to ease them out of their clawed shapes.

"It's a shame you wish to remain a judge. You'd be a fine officer of the Erlize."

Tanner wasn't sure if she felt insulted or flattered. No, she just felt terrified. At no stage could any other emotion intrude. Remember the lodge. Remember the judges. Remember her mother and father. Remember the shadow crawling out of the sun. She was going to die out here, she was locked into her current path, all she could do was make the best of this situation. Whatever she did in the last few... weeks of her life, maybe, would be the standard against which everything else was judged. If Tanner failed here, if she didn't listen to her orders, then... well, there she was. She wanted orders. Now she got orders. And it wasn't her business to complain about them.

Either way.

Mr. Canima stood quietly, straightening his suit as he went. For a moment he sagged, looking remarkably tired... but then all was well, and he was at the door, leaving with only the smallest of polite nods. More information to come. Doubted she'd meet him in the cold-house tunnels, that was too insecure, they'd... but if they met somewhere too open, they were in Canima's territory. So... somewhere in the middle, maybe. Close enough to the tunnels for Vyuli to run. Close enough to the outside for Tanner to run. Maybe.

Gods, she hoped...

Yan-Lam came back inside hesitantly, hands folded neatly in front of her, but eyes brimming with unrestrained curiosity. Idly, Tanner thought that if Yan-Lam had this responsibility, she'd use it as a chance to kill Vyuli. Maybe. Still hadn't... told her about Lyur, or about her heritage. Maybe that was why she wanted to work with the girl, and had sent Marana off to rest, despite Marana being more experienced by far. Tanner knew a great deal she didn't. And that was a kind of control, a kind of security. Or... she didn't want her wandering off and finding this out by herself. Sure, whichever worked. A desire to be around someone she had leverage over, like some sort of lunatic, or some kind of vague altruism.

Desire to not be alone, maybe.

That sounded more accurate than both.

Either way.

She was silent for a few moments, staring at her papers without focusing on them. Hadn't been more than a day since...

Since then. Felt longer. Felt much longer. Packed in more and more, in terms of responsibilities, stakes, everything. Come close enough to death that everything which wasn't immediate survival seemed to become flimsy and translucent. Now... snapping back. It'd been a day. She ought to be... in all the theatrophone plays, people would spent days in bed, they'd rest, they'd be tended to. No, no, those were plays, pure fiction. In real life, people just had to keep on going. She had to keep on going. The world didn't move to the schedule her weariness set. Insisting it did was pure selfishness.

"Miss?"

Tanner didn't reply for a while. Just stared.

And finally, finally, she spoke.

"Bring Marana here, please."

"...yes, miss. Is there anything else I can do?"

Tanner shook her head silently, forcing her hands to stop shaking. Didn't take long for Marana to come swanning in - she never moved, Marana. Never walked. Had to swan, sashay, glide, stride. She was a person of operatic movements. She slipped through the door, sitting down with languid ease... before wincing at the pain in her side, and looking around for the nearest decanter of something or other. Yan-Lam remained hovering around the door, nervous as could be, unsure of what had gone on behind her back. The three remained in silence for a little bit, Marana waiting for Tanner, Yan-Lam waiting for Tanner, Tanner waiting for Tanner. Marana suddenly twitched, facing Yan-Lam and murmuring a polite request for 'something powerful and restorative'. A confirmatory glance from the maid and a small nod from Tanner sent her scurrying away for all the necessaries.

"Are you quite alright, you absolute salmon?"

Tanner knew that Marana had lied about Fyeln. Paid him for information, then spun a story about finding a lover like that, snap of her fingers and a twist of her wrist summoning the admirers as if by magic. Had it been to impress her? Had it been... just an ego trip? Didn't want to ask. Not yet. Not... now. Had other things.

"I want to ask for your advice."

"The wellspring of my wisdom opens wide for you. Feel free to have a dip."

She paused, and her fingers itched - she wanted to sip something to punctuate her statements, the alcohol a permanent prop in her life. Yan-Lam's entrance made her perk up, naturally, and the liquid-enhanced full stop was belatedly inserted. The maid hovered around for a few moments until Tanner signalled for her to leave. Didn't want her hearing this.

The click of the door echoed in the close quarters of the governor's office.

"...well?"

"He wants me to go and see the cartel leader."

Marana stiffened.

"So, he's snapped then, I take it?"

"I'm going to do it."

"...Tanner, you shouldn't."

"It's my job. Already decided. Just... you were in Krodaw, you keep talking about it. I just... would appreciate some advice."

"...on negotiating with dangerous criminals. Tanner, I drew propaganda posters and had successive nervous breakdowns while indulging in cocaine and alcohol, before making random guests very uncomfortable. I'm hardly some sort of... proverbial otter in the proverbial river of horror, all the terrifying water sliding off my fur like that."

Her tone was careful, considered, at no stage raising or showing any emotion beyond concern. She was being tightly regulated. Didn't even sip her brandy to punctuate her statement.

"But you..."

Tanner swallowed down her hesitation. Didn't like talking about this. Despised it, really. Being open was... open doors let in wind and insects, open wounds let in infection and let out blood, open eyes could find no sleep, and when the sky expelled huge amounts of rain and thunder, it's said that the skies have opened. Openness was a quality of catastrophe. No catastrophe happened because something was a bit too reserved or a bit too cautious.

Presumably.

"You had... experiences. Was there ever a time where you met someone who terrified you, truly terrified you, and you... had to..."

She trailed off. Weak. Marana looked her up and down. Tanner suppressed her fear of her response with the thing she knew about Fyeln. Not that she'd ever use it. But... she knew it. And that was an edge, and as long as she kept the information to herself, it remained an edge. If she released it, then Marana might laugh it off, dispelling any illusion of control. Tanner was spiralling out of any kind of control right now, she took what she could get.

The woman winced in mild discomfort as she leaned forwards... and patted Tanner on the hand, very gently indeed.

"...there was... one occasion. You understand, my father had to indulge the services of some very dangerous people in order to... survive even as long as he did. One of those people was Colonel Pralan. The Sleepless worked with extreme brutality. Scalping. Decapitation. Torture. Hostage-taking. At no point did they relent. Colonel Pralan largely existed to match them. It happened to some people - the heat got to them, and all the violence, and they just became part of it. As bad as the Sleepless. 61st Expedition was one of them, but they were all wiped out, and came along early enough that we... had no context for their actions. Didn't know the Sleepless would be doing worse to us soon enough. Pralan was around when we were used to the Sleepless, and had no scruples left. Time was, we destroyed politicians because they were tied up with the 61st. Pralan... he came along after we stopped caring."

A pause. Her face was very pale indeed. Very pale, and very still, like the surface of the moon. Her alcohol shivered in her hand, but she didn't raise it to her lips. Like she wanted her mind as clear as possible for this.

"Colonel Pralan had been out in the wilderness for a while. No hair on his head, shaved it off to keep the insects out. Never stopped sweating, not once in all the time I knew him. Used this... oil for his skin, too, and when he sweated - which he always did - the oil went with it, made everything smell of lemon around him. Disgusting. No idea how old he was... couldn't tell, he had old and young features, buried them all under a thick tan, like his whole body was... the bottom of a foot, that was the comparison. Callused and leathery. Layer after layer. Though if you took a potato peeler to him, you could probably go for hours and not reach the bottom."

"I... see."

"And he was violent. Sick, sick man. The only thing the Sleepless understood was brutality. So, he'd inflict it on them in amounts they couldn't stomach. Not that he got many chances. But when he did, he was insane. Burned whole stretches of forest to rout out a single group. Trained his men by forcing them to work in an abattoir for at least a few weeks straight... alongside all the normal training, of course. Just needed them used to the blood. I didn't... meet him very often. Thankfully. But I encountered him enough. He didn't even evacuate the colony, insisted on staying to defend the last trains out. But I met him a few times. Terrified me. I thought I was... toughened up, I suppose. But he was different. Hollow. I don't think there was any emotion inside of him by the end. By the end, he was just this... shell, walking around. Heard about some of the things he did. Father never let me be alone with him, whenever possible. Sometimes he... stared at me, from across dinner tables. Silent. Waiting for something, I don't know what. And when the city collapsed..."

She shivered.

"Nothing happened to me. I got out alive. Unscathed. Just before the last defences were destroyed. But... he was there. For three hours, we were in a waiting room together. Hot. Stinking. Sound of yelling crowds outside. Mosquitoes climbing all over me, but not one of them went for him. Didn't want to touch him. And he sat there, plump and strange, sweating and stinking of lemon, and he just... watched me. Breathing through his nose like an angry bull. He was the only one around. Father was arranging everything he could. Three hours... three hours stuck with him. With someone I knew had done things to his prisoners, things... I saw one of his cells, one that only he and the prisoners used. The floor was black. I stepped inside, and my foot sank an inch down through the black. It was... a kind of black pudding. The drain in the floor had clogged, and things had just piled up, drying in the heat... lacquer of pudding, an inch thick. Three hours with him. Father came when he could, told me to come with him, he was getting on the last train, I was to be with him. Didn't even glance at Pralan. Pralan stopped looking at me, and as I left, I passed him."

Her eyes flickered up to Tanner's.

"He had a gun in his hand. Had, the entire time. Hidden in the shadows. Loaded."

Tanner stared.

"...how did you... deal with it?"

"When you deal with people who are... accustomed to violence, to inflicting it personally, and not just violence, but pain, then you never show submission to them. Nor aggression. Unless killing them is an option, you're not really confronting them, you're just... riding the wave of their personality. If you're not going to kill them, you're either a toy, or you're beneath notice. And if you're not even especially submissive, just... aloof and profoundly boring, then you can get by. The trick, ultimately, is figuring out what they want from you, what's the version of you they want to hurt, and you don't give it. I acted quiet and boring. Nothing haughty, nothing that could be snapped. No terror. Nothing truly elevated. I just sat there, staring at the ground, and brushed mosquitoes from my arms whenever I could muster the energy. No conversation. I was a piece of smooth marble - nothing to read in me, nothing to take. With you..."

She tilted her head to one side.

"With you, I'd just recommend to not be a domineering judge. To not be a terrified victim. Be a bureaucrat. Be someone who just processes the world through pieces of paper, and has no connection to the things they represent. Bring files. Bring props. You're not here to challenge or react, just to witness. You're a pot with a hole in the bottom - no matter what enters, it flows away a second later."

Slowly, Marana stood, setting her glass down. She moved around the table, and squeezed Tanner's shoulder softly.

"And, ultimately, remember that you're... well... one of the toughest individuals I've met."

Tanner flushed slightly, just around her neck, and she dragged the collar of her dress upwards to cover any hint of the redness. Marana smiled faintly.

"Very enduring. Very... well, I mean, you arrived here alone and still tried to work, you were poisoned and got back to work, you were kidnapped and almost killed and got back to work, you were asked to see your almost-torturer again, and you accepted because it's your job. Plenty of chances to turn back."

Tanner might explode in a moment or two. No way of telling.

"Ultimately, my most exquisite stork, you met my surrealist colleagues and thought they were a bunch of... not dangerous lunatics, but just completely impractical. Sometimes you remind me of my father. Very good at judging things just by regarding them as fundamentally pointless, very effective method. So, go on out there, meet that snot-nosed weasel-creature that tried to hurt you, and be the most boring bureaucrat you could possibly be. Because no-one's passion lasts for more than a few seconds in front of a bureaucrat before it all feels silly, pointless, and faintly embarrassing. Go on. Make him feel silly. Make him feel like you're the grown-up."

Tanner nodded.

Nodded a little more firmly, for good measure.

Be boring.

Be restrained.

Do what she'd been doing all this time

Be the most boring, normal, functional judge ever trained. Be so completely normal she made anything abnormal look completely silly by comparison. Inside her were burbling enough emotions to crash past every levee she built against them, the amber-preserved wasp was starting to shatter its beautiful prison, so she'd put a firmer lid around it all. Keep contained. Keep restrained. Just a little longer.

Even if it only lasted a few moments. Restraint. Felt like putting on a too-tight corset, winching it shut with industrial equipment, crushing tighter and tighter until she felt... like her emotions went from a boiling core to a white-hot string, rippling with heat, laced through her spine and pulled tight. Wouldn't last for long, she thought.

But it'd last for now.

She murmured quietly:

"Thank you, Marana. That... helps."

"Of course it does, I give wonderful advice. Now, off you pop."

She leaned down and pecked her quickly on the cheek. Her eyes might be bleary with laudanum, her breath might be heavy with alcohol, her side might be stabbed and her nose might be bloated, but...

Oh, hell, Tanner was happy to have her around. And if she thought it wouldn't break her ribs, she'd hug the living daylights out of her.

But she didn't. So she didn't. And she stood, nodded politely...

And went off to do her damn job.