“What did you do?!” the queen shouted in his face.
He twisted his fingers under and between hers, and pried them off his windpipe. She straightened up, but remained kneeling on his arm with her painted nails hovering over him like bloody claws. As he blinked and massaged his throat, Omar noted that Thora and Leif were standing behind their mistress wearing grim faces.
Omar smiled weakly. “Highness, yes, you may come in. Please make yourself comfortable.”
She slapped him. “What did you do?”
“I take it you’ve heard about the miracle sweeping through the city,” he said, rubbing his cheek.
“Those damned flies of yours.” Her hand flew at his face again, but this time he caught her wrist and held it tight as he sat up, pushing her back. She tried and failed to yank her hand free.
“Oh no, not of mine,” he said sharply. “They’re yours, Highness. Those are the same bloodflies that you unearthed with your damned drill, the same bloodflies that turned a good king into an insane monster.”
“But you did something to them. What did you do?”
He was about to answer when he suddenly realized that all three of his guests were wearing hoods or scarves over their heads. And then he saw the flash of gold in Skadi’s eyes. Omar grinned.
“Rejoice, Highness. You too, miss, and you, young murderer. You are all saved from the reaver scourge. The plague will soon be nothing but an unpleasant memory, and with any luck, so will I, assuming you let me leave in peace.”
“Saved?” Skadi yanked the scarf from her head to reveal the tall fox ears nestled in her hair. “We’re monsters! We’re deformed!”
Omar laughed. “You know, the children outside were a bit more sanguine about this. They were excited about having super-human hearing and what not. They think they’re demigods, or some such. Do you people have a fox-god? If not, you should, or you will very soon, I imagine.” Omar stood up.
The queen stood as well, rising half a head taller than the southerner. “When the people realize what you’ve done to them, there will be civil war! The city will tear itself to pieces and the children will drown in the rivers of blood in the streets!”
“I’ve already told the people what I’ve done,” Omar said. Then he shrugged. “More or less. Anyway, they’re quite content about it. Maybe not everyone is thrilled about the ears, but they seem willing to embrace a few little changes since it means they are now immune to the reaver plague. As are you.”
Skadi stepped back, her face twisted in disbelief. “Immune?”
“Yes. Immune.”
“So you were telling the truth after all.” The queen stood a bit easier, relaxing her shoulders. “You really did spend all those years trying to find a cure.”
“I did, although I must confess, I only succeeded in finding this remedy a day ago. And I have you to thank. If you hadn’t sent that lovely young lady into the wild, to find me and remind me of the drill and the flies, I would probably still be in my little cave, dreaming of warmer climes.”
“And the people all know about this? And they accept it?” Skadi touched one of her hairy ears and winced at the sensation.
Omar sighed. “They know as much as they need to know. The bloodflies are the cure, and the ears are the price of their good health. All you need to do now is keep them calm and quiet a few more days and everyone in Rekavik will be saved. Wait a few more weeks for the flies to find the reavers in their dens, and everyone in Ysland will be saved. The hard part is done, Highness. By the time spring arrives, it will all be over. And if you like, you may take all the credit for it, however you wish.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “And what price will I pay for this generosity?”
“Nothing at all. A good deed is its own reward.” Omar smiled briefly.
“Just like that? No blood feud, no vendetta for what I’ve done to you?”
“No.” Omar gazed down at Riuza. She was hardly breathing at all. He said, “I’m no Yslander. Gods, I’m barely even human anymore. And Riuza was always going to die, whether in five years or fifty. If I hadn’t boarded her ship eight years ago, she probably would have returned safely to Tingis, only to be killed in some other airship accident or even in a war with the Songhai Empire. Death is a universal constant, just like me.”
Skadi smirked. “Is that really how you see the world?”
He looked up at her. He remembered the stained and patched black dress she had worn as the vala of Hengavik, and the way her young eyes had lit up when he talked about airships and the city of Tingis, and his travels around the world. “You were just like me, once. So eager, so curious. But you had the same curse as me, too. Obsession. It’s such a pity because you had such good intentions. Grand intentions! A machine to warm the land, to make the earth fertile, to bring back the forests of Ysland. It was a beautiful dream you had. And I was so caught up in helping you that I missed the little signs along the way. When you replaced the vala of Rekavik. When you seduced Ivar. It was such a subtle and insidious ambition.”
“There’s nothing wrong with ambition,” she said haughtily.
“Nothing at all,” he said gently. “But that ambition led you to a precipice. You climbed so high and grasped so much that you became terrified of losing it. And when you saw Ivar turning into a monster right before your eyes, when he tore those three men to pieces and hurled their shredded flesh in your face, that was the moment when you decided that what you had was more important than truth or life. And you told Leif to kill everyone to hide your failure, just so you could wear a little crown and sit on a little throne.”
Omar’s shoulders shook and his lip curled, and slowly the laughter built up inside him until he was roaring and crying.
“What’s so funny?” the queen asked.
He wiped his eyes, but the grin remained. “I’ve stood in the grand halls of the Aegyptian kings, the Hellan temples to the Olympian gods, the imperial bathhouses of the Persian lords, and the royal gardens of the Rajput princes. I’ve walked on polished marble, through gilded halls of towering alabaster statues, through the rainbow light of delicate stained glass windows, gazing up at the frescoed panels of soaring domed ceilings.” Omar exhaled the last of the giggles, and he gestured at the room around them. “You people live in stone caves with dirt floors, and the only remaining wood in the entire country is in your bedroom, which stinks of mold, by the way. And this,” he giggled, “is what you’ve been fighting so hard to hold on to. There are beggars in Aegyptus who live better than you do.”
She scowled at him in silence.
He sighed and glanced down at Riuza again. He couldn’t see her breathing anymore. Omar knelt down and touched her neck, and then stood back up. “She’s gone.”
“Then I’m a very lucky woman that you’re so far above matters of life and death,” Skadi said. “You can go now. Leave the city. Leave the country. No one will stop you.”
Omar didn’t move. “You know, if you had just executed Riuza or exiled her to some hovel in the hills, I probably wouldn’t care at all, now. But you threw her into the darkness and held her on the brink of starvation for five years. Five years. Until her body broke down, and her mind broke down, and she died in pain and confusion and fear, just now. Right here at our feet, when we weren’t even looking. And you did it just because you were angry at your own failure, didn’t you? But she didn’t deserve this. She just wanted to go home. And if the universe was a just and fair place, you would be punished for this.” He looked the tall queen in the eyes. “But the universe isn’t a just place, and life, as we all know, isn’t fair. But then, I suppose… I suppose that I can be fair, can’t I? I can be just.”
Omar drew his seireiken.
The blade flashed in the dim room, the walls erupting into a thousand shades of silver for the barest fraction of a moment.
The light was extinguished. The blade was already back in its clay-lined sheathe. The ghost of the samurai hovered in the corner of Omar’s vision, and then vanished as he took his hand off of the sword.