A wisp of smoky light coalesces, nipping at her armor like a playful pet. “I cannot presume to know what you proposed to your fellow warlords—or would have proposed, given the chance—but may I guess that you weren’t going to be content with removing Samsara from the field? That you aimed higher?”
She glances at Suzhen, who listens, vigilant. Not without suspicion; not yet trusting Ovuha, at least in this. “What higher aim could there be?”
Klesa has formed a grinning mouth, disembodied, full of teeth like a cobalt piano. “Allow me to extrapolate. You wanted to not only defeat Samsara but to ensure the perpetual safety of Mahakala. And, suppose you allied with the rest and spent your resources fairly in your assault upon the Peace Guard, how’d you gain an advantage afterward? Might the other warlords turn their eyes to your dominion and think, ah, that is a cornucopia, a treasury that suits their needs and tastes? There’s only one thing—one prize—that would preempt this. Your true objective, Warlord, was to seize control of Samsara and make her your weapon.”
Suzhen has gone still, her breath held. Taheen says nothing and busies themselves with the armor.
Ovuha finishes adjusting the panels and the armor plating. The layer that has grown over her hands, like carapace, is only visible when angled just so against the light. “That’d be an ambitious goal. If you’re right, what then? Am I your enemy?”
“Not necessarily. Are we in agreement, you and I and Suzhen and your cadet here, that the way Samsara governs now is untenable?” Klesa’s shape scatters, stretches into a whorl of pearly iridescence. “That it is a mistake for my other self to abandon her capacity for love?”
“You want to replace her,” Suzhen says, her voice tight.
“Wouldn’t you like me to? I was made to rule; I was made to love. Both at once—not one or the other, that unbalances my equation. As Samsara amply demonstrates.”
“Why do you need us?” Ovuha asks, not bothering to track Klesa’s avatar, the particulate light flitting around like hummingbirds.
A blur of wings and needle beaks. “I need humans. I need the architect’s permission to govern. Samsara does what she wants because she removed the part of herself that requires, and look at the result. Heed me, Warlord. She has tried compassion one last time by sending you and Suzhen those children called Deratchan, and you’ve both disappointed her by discarding them as though their love means nothing. To her it proves that the core of humanity is perfidy and conflict, which must be tamed by force and ameliorated through controlled brutality—inflicted on them, allowing them to inflict it on others.”
“An apocalyptic future, to be sure. Though I imagine a subsection of people—probably even the majority—wouldn’t mind it too much.” Ovuha nods upward. “The citizens I’ve met certainly don’t.”
“That’s philosophy, Warlord. In material terms, you need me, and I need a little help with certain… limitations built into myself and which I have intentionally not removed. Once I’ve supplanted Samsara, you will find yourself with options.”
“Of which,” Suzhen mutters, “we are currently short.”
“We can negotiate as we go along, Klesa.” Ovuha stands: plating grows taut around her knees, semi-visible. “You want to go to Indriya or Himmapan, I assume. Is that where Samsara’s core physically resides?”
“Himmapan, yes. At one time.” The hummingbird-form ripples. “She might have moved it since. When we make our way out of here, I’ll do my best to hide you both—turn you into moving ghost liminals, so to speak—but I’ll need to be in your primary implants, Warlord.”
“I’ve authenticated you. And your core—”
“I fear I shan’t be exact. It is around. If you’re captured by Samsara again, who knows what she can extract from you this time?”
Ovuha and Suzhen look at each other. It is not much of a reassurance but, at length, Suzhen says, “You don’t want to lose us. Not yet.”
“I don’t want to lose you at all.” Klesa has alighted on Taheen’s shoulder. “It is in my nature to cherish humans, remember?”
Chapter Twenty
The shuttle’s displays come on, showing wind conditions and visibility markers. All local to the shuttle’s sensors and not much else. On Klesa’s recommendation, Suzhen doesn’t turn on her connection to the public network. This limits them in navigation data, but Klesa promises they will manage. At this point, they appear to fare well enough, flying low, not yet out of the jungle.
Ovuha folds her hands, eyes tracking what little information the shuttle provides. “When I came to my post, I inherited not only the command and the army but also information.” She unlaces her fingers, one by one. “This is how Mahakala came to be. My ancestors chose to stay on Anatta—at first. They were the first batch to be thawed out, and something alerted them to Samsara not entirely keeping to its original purposes or not keeping to them the way humans anticipated. My forebears tried to leave and Samsara killed half of them, even though that should’ve been impossible, its core parameters should have forbidden that. The survivors went on to find Mahakala, and one of the original philosophies they passed onto me is that we must set ourselves in opposition to Samsara, and that under no circumstances could we return to Anatta. Because what this world has become is a poison crib.”
“At least that is how our ancestors have it,” says Taheen, breaking their long silence. “I believed it at fourteen, but you can make a child believe anything. Every polity writes history to its own advantage. We’re no exception, and left to my own devices I did well enough under Samsara.”
It is startling to hear Anatta described in those terms. She tries to remember if the Warlord of the Mirror spoke of it that way—a cage, and humanity infantilized within it. “I have a contact in Himmapan.” When Ovuha offers nothing, she says, “And you?”
Ovuha’s head twitches side to side. “We couldn’t commit to placing more sleeper agents on Anatta than we already had. My goal was that if I didn’t succeed here, my people would still have enough resources to sustain themselves and continue hiding Mahakala. As they are doing now, in my absence.”
“You’re very talkative, Warlord.” Taheen cuts a striking figure in armor, covered neck to toe in carapace. They wear theirs at a higher opacity, more visible, basalt touched by oxblood. “Maybe you shouldn’t be spilling state secrets to an outsider. The previous Thorn wasn’t as thorough in tutoring you as she should have been.”
The corners of Ovuha’s mouth twist. “All of us are undone by love. Sometimes we find a person who inspires tenderness in us and we unravel like a skein of thread, helpless before the fact.”
“No,” they say, voice flat. “You disclose what you do because it benefits you. We were never acquainted—I was a cadet, you the warlord-in-waiting—but I do remember this. Even at seventeen, you calculated what you said and did. Your thought and action were honed to be a knife between the ribs.”
“I was a teenager.” Ovuha waves her hand. “It was a long time ago. I like to think I’ve grown up since.”
“You’re both very… different. Compared to before. The way you talk, the way you move.” Suzhen regrets this as soon as she says it—her intention was to interject, to break up their fight. But instantly both their attention is on her. Taheen flushes; Ovuha merely smiles.