Chapter Text
“Cousin Armigers, why do you carry swords?” The young Hrisi girl tilted her head, staring blankly at the group of warriors clad in battle-worn shroudsuits. She was a small thing, her blue skin dotted with red whorls, characteristic of her species. A voice rang out from behind her and an older woman, a kinworlder whose face was freckled amber with specks of dried Hrisi blood, came limping over.
“Little one, don’t bother them, they need to stay focused to keep us safe.” The elder reached out to the girl to pull her away, but one of the Armigers, a tall Bennuc woman, held up a hand.
“It’s alright, she’s not a bother,” she said, and smiled wanly at the girl from where she sat on the floor. “Besides, we’re on standby at the moment, and I welcome the conversation.” Her two pairs of eyes were a warm, comforting red, and the girl noted that the smile clearly masked sadness, grief, anxiety. “May I know your name, little cousin?”
“Minaz. Arban Seteyu Minaz,” she said, thumping her chest lightly as she gave her clan, family, and personal name, as was her people’s tradition. Her people – her tradition – her kinworld, thoughts that swirled in her mind like sediment in murky water. She bit the inside of her mouth to make them go away. “And may I know yours?”
“My name is Radeen Abbenar.” She gestured to her compatriots one at a time. “My squadmates here are Elzon Tark, B’dun Murrus, Feyalosamba, whom you can call Fey, and Wrigon Oelos.” As they were named, each Armiger made a gesture of greeting to Minaz. “Now, would you be so kind as to repeat your question, cousin?”
For a brief moment, Minaz allowed her mind to drift back into awareness of her surroundings. She glanced out at the cavernous underground hall from her vantage on one of its large mezzanines, the once-proud public space now filled with refugees and reeking of fear and despair. Above ground was the city of Naris, but how much of the city still remained was a mystery. At least three hundred thousand were gathered here – civilians, remnants of the local militia, and the occasional rare pocket of Armigers. Scattered amongst the crowds were military command and supply stations, triage centers for the gravely wounded, and tucked away in the corners were the opaque black tents where the corpses were piled high, wrapped tightly in sterile nanocloth. Minaz allowed herself to dwell on the corpse-tents for a moment, reassuring herself that the body of her mother, her father, and brothers were all here, that at the very least they hadn’t been obliterated or left unrecoverable under countless layers of rubble. With a feeling like a psychic sigh washing over her, she put all the thoughts back into the box within her mind, not even needing to bite her mouth this time. Finally, she made a secret promise and buried it deep within her heart, a seed preserved until the chance was right for it to blossom.
Her expression still blank despite her foray into such emotional subjects, she repeated her previous inquiry. “Why do Armigers carry swords?”
The one who had been identified as Feyalosamba, or Fey, moved closer to her and leaned over. “How old are you, little one?”
Minaz blinked and tilted her head in the other direction, mildly stunned at being interrogated rather than provided the desired information. “Seven arn,” she answered, hoping that Fey would sense the frustration in her voice and expression.
Fey smiled broadly, patting the scabbard compartment of his shroudsuit. “We wear swords to protect little ones such as yourself.” The one called Elzon Tark laughed softly, their face bearing the kind of expression one makes when observing a small, cute animal.
In an instant, Minaz’s face went from blank to steel, hard and deadly serious. B’dun Murrus’s long ears went up in surprise, and Fey stepped back. Minaz took a deep breath. “No,” she said, in a voice that hinted at venom. “That’s a condescending answer. The kind you give to someone you think isn’t as smart as you.” She closed her eyes, drifting into memory. “First, my…” She made to say ‘mama’, but stopped herself – if she allowed herself to dwell on the departed, she knew it would hurt too much. “My…teacher says that under the Universal Precepts of Amalgam, children, youths, larvae, and other juvenile-phase beings are persons of equal worth and dignity, whose specific developmental needs should not preclude them from public life,” she quoted, delivering each word with measured staccato. “And second, it’s stupid to think that swords are the main way you protect people. You have lots of weapons that are much more effective, and not to mention that Armigers are experts in thaumaturgy.” Minaz huffed. “Just a normal sword isn’t enough to fight someone who can use thaumaturgy. So there must be a different reason.”
The group of Armigers stared meekly at the young Hrisi girl, as if cowed by her passion and audacity. The six of them – Armigers on one side, Minaz on the other – stood in awkward silence, until it was broken by the gently rasping, shattered-glass voice of the one who had been named as Wrigon Oelos.
“The sword,” he said, all four of his arms crossed lazily over his body, “or perhaps the blade, is the most fundamental of all weapons for a majority of known species and cultures. A sharpened rock, a pointed stick, a jagged bone; the material constraints of Meridianic existence give rise to the emergent property of the blade-form, the knife-form, the sword-form and all that the use of these forms entail.” His eyestalks retracted into his cranial protuberance, and despite the differences of anatomy between them, Minaz was certain that this was akin to closing his eyes to concentrate, as she had a moment ago. “Wielded by the novitiate thaumist, the sword may seem to pale in comparison to the apparent miracles their art affords them. But to the learned, who in learning come to know only the depths of their ignorance, the utility of the sword is evident. After all, the power of an engram stems primarily from the wielder, who can no more separate themselves from the context of their species and culture than a sword can shatter in the absence of an external force – all beings are in part, what they carry with them.” Oelos made a gesture that Minaz interpreted as a smile. “Equilibrium of Thaum, Tractate Six,” he cited.
The young Hrisi girl nodded. “It’s a symbol,” she said slowly, “and people interpret the world through symbols, and that means that symbols have power.”
Fey made a conciliatory gesture, and Minaz could see the astonishment and wonder in his eyes. She knew she had impressed him, which made his next statement all the sweeter to hear. “I am sorry I treated you with less respect than you deserve, honored cousin,” he said, before performing the Congregation’s universal gesture of honor between accomplished equals, the Equipoise Salute. Minaz returned the gesture and let her face relax, back to the blank look she favored, but allowed herself a rush of pride within. If she died now, she knew she would die happy, in the company of her family and kinworlders and having won even a token of recognition from one so lauded as an Armiger.
Radeen Abbenar rose from the floor. She made a series of quick, sharp motions whose precise meaning escaped Minaz, but from the reaction of the other warriors were likely a concise way of conveying information and instruction. She began walking in no direction in particular, and beckoned to the Hrisi girl. “Come walk with me, cousin.”
The two of them strolled together, past groups of civilians and through an alley of temporary structures distributing rations and supplies to sullen lines of Hrisi. After a while, Radeen spoke without looking at her small companion, her words only loud enough for the girl alone to hear. “Chanzar is a beautiful planet. I feel honored to visit your kinworld, though I wish it were under better circumstances.”
Minaz bobbed her head in agreement, unsure of what else to say. She looked a short distance away, where an infant was playing on the floor with simple toys, babbling happily without awareness of the reality enveloping them.
Radeen began walking ever so slightly quicker, so that Minaz was forced to half-jog to keep pace. She could tell that the Armiger was testing her somehow, evaluating her. Her companion made an inscrutable noise with her mouth, and the Hrisi girl looked upwards. The older woman continued to look ahead, not glancing down at the girl. “You’re wise beyond your arn, little cousin.”
“I know. People say that to me a lot. That I think differently from others.”
“Does that bother you?”
“No. It’s true, after all. I can’t be upset at people for telling the truth. And nobody treats me badly for it, because discrimination based on differences moves away from Amalgam.”
Radeen made a curious noise in her throat. “It’s interesting – for Hrisi, I’ve been led to believe that ten is considered the end of infancy.” She scratched the side of her head, and traced a finger across an old scar. “And thirty is considered the start of adulthood, is it not?”
“Mmm.”
The two walked directionlessly, traversing the mezzanine and weaving in between the columns and pillars and sub-buildings, the crowds and tents and misery. They passed a group of Hrisi tearfully pleading with a pair of Armigers, and once they were a short distance away, Radeen spoke again. “Do you understand the situation your planet is in, Minaz?”
The girl knew that the question being asked wasn't quite the one spoken – that Radeen wanted to know just how deeply she understood. “Marauders are plundering our world, taking resources and captives. These ones are extremist cultists who want people with more powerful thaumaturgy to rule over others. I’ve heard people talking – some of them are probably dissidents from the Kaldories, since they only joined the Congregation recently.”
Radeen nodded approvingly. “And why Chanzar specifically? Why do you think?”
“Because there aren't a lot of people here. It's an easier target.”
“Good. What else?”
Minaz tilted her head in thought. “Also because…” she said, working through the problem, “Chanzar is on the periphery of the Congregation? There's not a lot of people in the whole region, which means not a lot of defenders, and any help that comes would take longer to get here?”
Radeen smiled and came to a stop at a pillar, leaning against it. “You think like an Armiger.” She looked out at the crowded hall, the makeshift sanctuary filled with the fighters, the frightened, the hopeless; the injured, the dying, and the dead. A multitude of sounds bounced around the room; low conversations, children’s cries, the clatter of equipment and supplies being moved, various hums and throbs of machinery, but even so an air of silence hung above it all. It was the heaviness of two forces, of desperation and hope in equal measure, pressing down on the huddled masses as they either let their gazes fall to the floor or rise upwards, through stone and structure to the sky and stars that lay beyond. The girl looked up at the Armiger and in the glinting of her warm red eyes saw the interplay, the contradiction between these forces.
Minaz moved in close, dropping her voice to a soft murmur. “What are our odds?” Now her companion turned to look at her, and the girl knew she was being probed, analyzed, her question mentally dissected and her emotional state judged. Not many of the grownfolk she knew practiced this behaviour, this thoughtfulness; instead, they reacted emotionally to the kinds of questions she asked. “Our chances of survival,” she said flatly, bluntly, without fear. “What are they?”
Radeen crouched down to her young companion’s level, her shroudsuit armor more flexible than Minaz would have guessed. Her face hardened, and she exhaled. “Bad,” she said plainly. “Not horrible. But bad. Our battlegroup was the closest to Chanzar when we got the distress call. We anticipated that the opposition would have simple numerical superiority, but planned to make up the difference with greater firepower and tactical cohesion.” Her words had no patronizing lilt, nor did her body language indicate an infantilizing attitude. She spoke as she would to a peer, a comrade. “As it turned out, the enemy’s reserves were much bigger than anticipated. When our ground operations made planetfall, they translated two strike groups in-system to cut us off. We’ve been struggling to hold our own since then.” She cursed under her breath, the specific expletives unfamiliar to Minaz but her tone unmistakeable. “They’re wearing us down, and it’s working. We’ve requested reinforcements, but it could be days before they arrive.” She rubbed a scorch-mark on her shroudsuit, worrying at it like a fresh wound. “Those are the odds, I’m afraid.”
Minaz reached out to touch the scorch-mark, and Radeen leaned forward, accepting the touch. Rather than metallic, as the girl had assumed, the arcplate material of the suit felt like shell or chitin, a carapace for a vulnerable thing. She stared directly into the woman’s eyes, holding her gaze. “You and your squadmates are among the next Armigers to be deployed back into combat, aren’t you?”
Radeen’s face was stony as she answered. “Yes.”
“And you don't think you'll survive. You're going to buy us time until reinforcements get here but a lot of Armigers will die.”
“Yes.”
“But then why are you spending time with me?”
Radeen looked to the side for a moment, blinking quickly, and let out a slow, shaky sigh. When she looked back at Minaz, her face was alight with a smile. She flicked her right hand and a compartment opened on the chest of her shroudsuit, from which she pulled a small, straight blade. It had a dark black hue, made from the same material throughout, and lacked any ornamentation. “This,” Radeen said, holding the blade with its hilt pointing at the girl, “is an Obsequy. They serve to remember and honor Armigers after they have passed – usually recovered by one’s comrades after they fall in battle. But by right, it’s mine to give to whomever I choose, and I choose you, Arban Seteyu Minaz.”
The Hrisi girl took the Obsequy, and as soon as it was in her hands she marveled at the paradox of it, how it was dreadfully heavy to hold yet at the same time felt as if it weighed nothing at all. She turned it over and over again, and soon it became clear that its dark black hue was in fact a barely-describable iridescence, shapes coalescing in the metal like the figures one’s mind conjures while peering into the dark. Minaz looked up at the Armiger and opened her mouth to speak, but Radeen held up a hand.
“I know I didn’t answer your question, and I know you’re going to ask me why I’m giving this to you. You’re wondering, why honor a Hrisi girl? Doesn’t Cousin Abbenar have anyone else to bequeath such a treasure to?” She put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “I am old, Minaz. The use of thaumaturgy often extends one’s life, and I’ve outlived all blood relations and any who would remember me from my world of origin. My closest comrades will almost certainly die alongside me soon here on Chanzar, and any Armigers who come later and reclaim my Obsequy from the battlefield will be people I don’t know. If anyone will honor it properly, it will be you. There’s a cold fire in you, girl, and if you feed it properly, it’ll burn down anything that stands in your way.”
Minaz held the knife in her hands, cradling it like a newborn, then gently tucked it in the pocket of her tunic. She stared into the woman’s red eyes for a long time, then held out her hand. “I promise I won’t let you down.”
The two of them walked hand-in-hand together back to where Elzon Tark, B’dun Murrus, Feyalosamba, and Wrigon Oelos were gathered. They bade each other their farewells, Armigers on one side and lone Hrisi girl on the other, and as they left the Armigers gave Minaz the Equipoise Salute. She watched intently as they walked away, across the mezzanine and down into the center of the great hall and then to the far side of it, until they disappeared from sight.