The Archive Undying, page 26
“Conscripted.” Ruhi winces. “I’m sorry, Imaru. I should have gone back.”
Imaru takes a deep breath, the kind where she checks the orientation of her anger. Her fragile gaze lingers on Sunai.
He can’t stand to see her afraid. He grasps her hand. “It was a bad night. We’re still here. Alive. That means we keep moving forward.”
Imaru allows herself to grasp his hand in turn, though her look remains brittle. It’s as if she isn’t grateful to see him. Then she inhales, squeezes, and lets go. “Right. Forward.”
She takes them across the bridge, speaking with her back turned. “Jin and Oyu are coming in from Orchid. We’re rendezvousing here, then sneaking out through the tunnels—keeping out of the madam’s sight. If she hasn’t yet figured out we’re the ones who brought in the Harbor autonomist, she’ll know soon enough. And when she hears about the new relic in Grotto … We want to be out of her hair by then.”
Imaru pauses only to send a last glance toward Sunai, hard but secure—a promise. Forward.
* * *
The bridge leads to a corridor hollowed through petrified wood straight to the center of the nautilus. The space that yawns open at the end is eerily familiar: the gouged heart of the Mangrove shrine. The hole cut into the canopy overhead is preternaturally rectangular, a scar left by the Harbor when they came to claim the archive so many years ago. A similar block was carved into the floor below.
Before corruption, Mangrove’s archival heart swelled with seawater, and the archive’s coral fans curled within a murmuring tide pool. Now absent an archive, the hole cradles an unkept patch of sandy earth with scraggles of wild vegetation. That has to be a metaphor. The madam might as well have dug a latrine.
She at least saw fit to build around the gap the Harbor left behind. They enter onto a teahouse floor, a flat circular level surrounding the archival pit. Hodgepodge tables and chairs stand at artful intervals, nearly all empty. The exception: a setup on one of the few elevated platforms that allows a clear view of the pit. There sits Jin, speaking in low tones to a ragged Cothai and a hovering Oyu.
Sunai instinctively searches for Waretu. He doesn’t find her, but a fourth figure does indeed stand behind Jin, head neatly bent to listen. Sunai’s stomach sinks. That short, slim stature and fashionable haircut belong to Madam Wei.
Well, shit.
No sooner does Sunai recognize the madam than Imaru steps in front of him, eager to play the shield, just as Ruhi shifts to a watchful position behind. Even Veyadi draws within arm’s reach of Sunai, tense and readied. As if Madam Wei doesn’t also want the doctor’s head on a pike! As if his delicate, academic skull would in some way be more difficult to skewer.
In the ambient suspense Sunai sizes up the madam for a brawl, even as he knows that throwing hands won’t solve his problems. The absence of visible guards only means that they’re lurking politely out of sight. A gesture of goodwill. Maybe.
Upon sight of them, Jin’s face is hopeful. They squeeze Cothai’s shoulder and share a glance with Oyu, who coaxes Cothai up to lead him away. Sunai tries to catch their eye over Veyadi’s shoulder. Cothai hesitates, but Oyu keeps him moving, their mouth tight and small. They don’t even stop for Imaru.
“Where’s Waretu?” Imaru calls out, stopping the group short of the platform.
Jin’s face creases. Imaru’s distance makes it plain that she doesn’t trust the situation, and it seems to sting. But their hand curls around the head of their new black-lacquered cane, and they don’t stand to close the gap. When Jin glances behind them, the madam nods.
“Great question.” Jin sweeps their cane toward the eastern thicket of wall, in the direction of Jasmine. “Cothai made it to the fishing boat next door before the Never got impounded. Waretu didn’t. Last Cothai saw of her, she was tossing the final load of the chitin to some old Ginger buddies the next pier over. They ditched every piece they could in the bay. But you know, we just can’t say with confidence that we scuttled every last bit, especially since my fucking rig is gone, along with a member of our crew who knew, hm, what was it? Ah, yes. Everything.”
“Yes. Troubling, isn’t it?” says the madam.
Jin determinedly doesn’t look at Madam Wei’s tilted head, her raptor peer. “The point is that, somewhere along the way, this shit got unconventional. The Harbor hasn’t launched a raid of that size in over five years. Which means they knew they had something to find and got desperate enough to go big. Not big enough to summon the Maw, mind you—unless, maybe, they had reason to fear something would happen to it if they did.”
“You think they knew about the disruptor?” Ruhi asks cautiously.
Jin jabs their cane at him. “Now why would we think that? Or should I say, who should I blame for ratting us out?”
“The relic,” says Sunai.
Jin balks. Imaru tries to stop him from stepping forward, but he brushes her aside. The madam isn’t going to unsee him; it’s too late to hide. He’s better off presenting himself as a person. It’ll be harder for Jin to hurt him if they have to look him in the eye.
“The Harbor’s relic knew we were coming. We hoped they would conceal us along with whatever they were up to, but that was never a guarantee.” Sunai spreads his hands, maintaining a careful nonchalance. “Or do you still think we have a mole?”
Jin studies him with an uncharacteristic hesitation, but they don’t soften. “You don’t think it’d be foolish to assume otherwise?”
“I think it’s too late in the game to start over.”
“You think you’re still on the board! Listen, Sunai. You’re half the problem.” They gesture toward Grotto. “After the relic shit you flaunted all over the fleet? Come on, the Harbor knows you’re here to be found. They’re going to come for you.”
“They can’t have him.” Veyadi defies Ruhi’s effort to keep him back, drawing up beside Sunai. “Neither can you.”
Sunai thinks: Why is Adi so stupid! And: Why does he make me so stupid? The doctor’s ferocity sent a dizzying thrill through Sunai’s chest. For a second, he believed that Veyadi could keep him safe—a delusion he’s not nursed in years.
Lucky, then, that Madam Wei sighs. Her serrated concern cuts down his every idiot thought. Even Jin tenses as the madam speaks. “Dr. Lut, I don’t mean to single you out for bad behavior. I question the decision to fold you into this operation, given the nature of your Harbor ties, but if you’re to prove yourself a responsible member of this crew, then I must ask you to give this matter appropriate consideration.”
Veyadi refuses to back down, but he steps no farther forward. Sunai wants to touch the back of his hand; he can’t risk it.
The madam’s gaze is mild, but as it drifts toward Sunai, her lip curls. “What are we to do with a relic, Dr. Lut? Certainly we can’t let the Harbor claim him. But if we keep him, we must pour vital resources into his protection at a time when we have none to spare. We’ll lose even more if we send him away. The Harbor will overturn Grotto searching for him regardless of whether he’s there to find.”
Sunai frowns. “You say that like I’m not a resource myself.”
Imaru shoots him a warning look, but he can only offer her a mental apology. Madam Wei will catch even the subtlest gesture.
Imaru may yet come to terms, his passenger says. Or, she may not … In which case you must choose whether her distress is a price you are willing to bear.
As it speaks, Veyadi turns toward Sunai, jaw tight. He can tell the passenger’s muttering again, even if he can’t hear what about. Sunai spares him an assuaging smile. Veyadi won’t like this either. Ruhi will hate it, but at least Sunai’s grown used to disappointing him.
“I’m your best bet,” Sunai says before anyone can object, spreading his arms. “If you want to kill the Maw, you need me.”
The declaration hangs in the air, enormous and absurd. Killing the Maw will always sound impossible, especially coming from a salt-caked hermit like Sunai. Yet the look on the madam’s face isn’t disbelief. It’s smaller. Less kind. She glances at Jin.
Jin groans from deep within their chest as they make eye contact with Sunai. “Did you have to make this difficult? We’re not negotiating, Sunai.”
Then they shoot him. He barely has time to be surprised.
26
The leaden wait below the waves where passing morsels flit flit flit is/would/should be torture—
—yet it is not, for there was a command, a demand, a plea, that fins be still and mouths be shut. But the order that forced twitching limbs inert was not shackle, it was relief, was succor—
—for it is a gift to simply be …
This is/was/could have been desired once, when the “I” was more than this fell absence—
—this mortal fragment, this wretched lack—
—this only skin, flesh, feet, hunger—
—so could/should/can it be a wonder that this compulsion is thought of not as shackle, but instead as borrowed patience?
As the assemblage of un-selves grows, expands, clusters, and disperses—
—there is but one fear, clear and singular:
Will there be enough for me/me/me …
* * *
If I came across as weary or upset the last time we found ourselves in this situation, I assure you that I do not feel the same way now. This death was not your fault, Sunai. It was a betrayal. I worry that you will take ownership of it regardless. You have done so before.
I wonder why Jin cleaves to that gun. Perhaps they think it an impersonal piece of violence, less intimate than anything that might connect them to their victim, skin to metal to skin. Or perhaps it is that they are a child of Khuon Mo, where Cradle-born superstitions never truly overtook downworlder sentiment. The descendants of the satellite citadel still fear weapons that might puncture a sacred hull and drown all Cradle in the void of space. Yet even your downworlder ancestors thought of guns as city-killers. A gun should be large, unwieldy, and pointed toward the wilds. One that fits in the hand and could be turned on any citizen signifies kin-slaying, oath-breaking, and the dissolution of trust that binds a state together.
At least, that is what your dramas would have you believe. I do not think a gun is much more brutal than a blade, but then, I do not care much for either.
Wei Jin has also found their weapon less pleasant than they anticipated. They skulk on the other side of the gate from your reconstituting corpse. New lines of upset carve their mouth, made even deeper by the shadow of glass and mesh that separates you. I ask that you temper your impulse to pity them, Sunai. Wei Jin is the one who ordered you put here.
Yes, I said Wei Jin. Although you have long nurtured the suspicion, this is the moment you decide you can no longer dismiss the tie. As they stand beside their aunt outside your prison, the resemblance between their avian peering is too striking to deny.
“Has he reassembled himself?” Madam Wei does not sound as though she takes delight in asking, but I do not think she dislikes your pain.
There has been quite a lot of that, as you lie in the crumbling dirt. Your breath is labored and your eyes are glazed with the horror of your seeping brain. Despite the damage, you are aware. That is a shame.
“Dunno. Just saw his eye twitch.”
“The reports from Grotto say he recovered from drowning rather more briskly.”
“Well, aunty, he didn’t have to regrow his skull that time, did he? Or maybe he’s not used to getting fucking murdered in such rapid succession.”
“There’s no need to sulk.”
Jin’s mouth twists further. Their aunt places a hand on the gate. A rattling hiss emerges from the foliage behind you.
Ah, yes, I should have mentioned. I am afraid you are not alone in here.
“Do you remember me, Sunai?” asks Madam Wei. “You didn’t seem to, on the pier. I suppose the day was more unique for me. More traumatic. You led me down the meditation path.”
You blink. Within, you stumble through your haphazardly reconstructed synaptic web, searching for the recollection. Tattered as you are, you arrive at an impersonal, washed-out impression: years on years of sneaking after sobbing supplicants on Lily, until the day you were ordered to take them by the hand and lead them to the lighthouse shrine yourself.
A sound escapes you, a shapeless regret. You lack the neural command to articulate the pain of failing to recognize your own victim.
This is the sort of thing I like about you, Sunai.
Madam Wei covers her mouth to hide her smile. “Imagine how I felt, twenty years later, when the young archivist who escorted me to Iterate Fractal’s torture chamber appeared before me unchanged, as if a ghost. I knew what you were immediately. Have you heard what I do with relics such as yourself? I have made a business of you.”
“He’s heard.”
“Jin, dear, I’m sure you explained what danger he faced, following you down here. I wonder whether you explained why.”
You croak. I think she misinterprets it as protest. I know you mean to laugh.
“Come now, archivist. What would you do, in my position? The Harbor is a choking vine. It would strangle our people. We mustn’t give it purchase to take root. Every living relic is a threat to what remains of our home. I have removed those threats as they appear.”
How many relics, you wonder, were mulched into the archival pit, all to starve the Maw?
You think also: her fear is uncompromising. Your hazy eye traces the gnarled scars on her neck, where Iterate Fractal snaked under her skin and tried to unmake her. Yet bound up as she was in the moment of Iterate Fractal’s death, she did not corrupt. Is that why she hates you so? Because of how near she came to becoming what you are?
Yet she did not. Neither, I am afraid, did any of Iterate Fractal’s other supplicants—its greatest sin. They all died, but for the madam. I believe she was rescued by her sister and her sister’s child, though not without a price.
The insight I offer causes you to convulse in the dirt. Confusion, and an objection. You think: Madam Wei was not the only supplicant to survive corruption. After all, you too were bound …
Ah … No, Sunai. You are mistaken. I do not believe you understand the fate Iterate Fractal meant for you any better now than you did then. This is not to say that I think what Iterate Fractal intended for you was any better, but if you had been one of the madam’s ilk, you would not be here, and we would not—
I am distracting you with my own preoccupations. Perhaps that is a mercy? You grasp at thoughts that your pain-stunted mind cannot hope to link. Why did the supplicants of Lily die when you, run through on Lotus, did not?
When the madam sighs, you are drawn back to her frail frown.
“It’s a shame. Jin had almost convinced me you were more asset than issue before you went and made a scene of yourself in Grotto. Your popularity … it concerns. We cannot afford for a relic to be romanticized.”
The foliage shivers, and the madam lifts her gaze to it.
“How fortunate we are that Grotto yet loves me,” she says. “The fleet knows that I protect them against any threat. I need only show them that I will make no exception for you.”
Another sound creeps into your ears. Scraping through dirt, clicking against metal, a guttural serpentine hiss.
“There she is,” the madam murmurs.
A delicate claw sinks into your shoulder; you groan, low and shapeless like a punctured balloon. With surprising strength you are turned onto your back. You see an angular face, azure-feathered, on an elegant emerald-scaled neck. Your mouth moves in silent recognition. Tenbeast. Sentinel-fowl. A fragment of Iterate Fractal’s grandeur reduced to maddened hunger. The sentinel-fowl’s crest flares as she angles her head to look you in the eye with the slit of hers. Your heart aches fiercely.
“I like to keep her hungry,” the madam says. “She ate my sister, you know.”
Sunai, I worry for this woman. She is the product of the world that bore her. That must sound like a tautology to one versed in the Lay, saturated with stories of push and pull, consequence, and convergence. All-that-is is that-which-was, and all the knowing soul can hope for is to find some meaning in the cross section of the present. I apologize. I am a clumsy student. Let me settle on a point on which we can agree: Madam Wei was forged by Iterate Fractal. The cruelties she visits on others cannot be divorced from the cruelties visited on her. It is a shame she has become this way, and I hesitate to blame her, but what is a person if they cannot have ownership of their actions?
You see? You agree. And oh, the more I see of you, the more I understand, the more I come to think I cannot afford to lose you.
If I opened my truest heart to you, Sunai, what would you do with what you found?
* * *
He doesn’t always die quiet, but there is reliably a silence. Typically it resolves into lack, a momentary beat of absence. But typically he’s singular, and right now he’s something else. The piece he’s used to being is dead. The rest persists, if unhappily, its heart beating hard in his ears—for he is not, in fact, Sunai. He should be grateful for this.
Instead his eyes are full of the body that is-was-is Sunai, which lies broken on the sandy floor below. He hopes for some sign of life, just as he hopes he will see none at all, because the slightest breath will bring pain. He wishes desperately to spare the body any more of that.
He, Not-Sunai, Veyadi, grips the railing. Imaru’s hand falls over his. He throws her off—too sharply. The Ginger Company guards who watch them from two tables away put their hands to the hilts at their waists. Ruhi touches each of their shoulders, communicating fear.
Imaru’s mouth twists. “Sit,” she says, abrupt with fury. The elevated table left for them ensures they won’t lose sight of the body. When Veyadi hesitates she says, “Or they’ll kill you too.”
