Nine #2
“Andermus threatened me. You should be careful with that one. I agreed to come see you, and now I have done. My part of the bargain’s complete, and I’ll leave you to get some shut-eye.”
“I read your books when I was a kid,” Dafyd said. “I didn’t understand Wolf of the World , but you did a set of short stories. The People of the Panopt . I don’t know how many times I read those. It felt like a hundred.”
“I’ll sign you a copy when we go home,” she said over her shoulder as she walked away with her odd, rolling gait.
“These new children? I can’t help them,” Dafyd said, his voice rising.
“They need you.” Her steps slowed. He trotted to catch up with her.
His thigh felt bruised, like he’d lain on it long enough to do damage.
“They’re going to be born here. They’re not going to know anything but Carryx rule.
All this? It’s going to be normal to them.
It’s going to be how they grew up. They won’t know Anjiin.
They won’t have any idea how we used to live. ”
Uuya Tomos stopped, then turned to look at him. She was a small woman, but she didn’t feel that way. Her presence seemed to fill the space around them, and her scowl was sharp enough to cut. “And whose fault is that?” she snapped.
Dafyd pointed to the archway. “The Carryx. It’s their fault. It’s always their fault. If you need to hate me for it, that’s fine, I’ve made myself the one everyone is allowed to hate. But I am doing what I have to do for the human moiety to survive.”
“There are worse things than dying,” she said, but he was close enough to her now that he could speak softly. Too softly for the Rak-hund to hear them.
“If I wanted to raise these children to revolt against the empire, I could do that. If I wanted to raise them to be good servants, I could do that too. But I need them to be both, and that’s too hard for me.”
The old woman’s eyes narrowed, and she turned her head to the side like she was trying to see past something between them. The Rak-hund shifted, noticing the proximity of the two humans and uncertain whether Dafyd was under threat. He willed the thing to stay where it was.
“If we’re going to fight back,” he said, “we have to be patient. We have to be smart. There are things I know that I can’t tell you yet.
Or won’t, anyway. But there’s… reason to hope.
But maybe I can’t get it done in my lifetime.
Maybe we have to lay the groundwork now and let these kids or their kids or the kids after them finish it.
But for that to happen, we need to teach them how to seem like one thing and be something else.
And we have to do it carefully enough that the big fuckers don’t see what we’re doing. ”
“You must think I’m stupid,” she said. “You’re the champion of the fucking Carryx.
You’re their lapdog. Every chance you’ve had, you picked them over us.
I have friends who died because of you. Now I’m supposed to think you’re some kind of secret patriot?
If I agree to this, you wave your vicious little pet over to rip me apart, right? ”
Dafyd ignored her. “Not just a curriculum. It’s not just education.
I need stories. I need songs about how we might suffer now, but that we’ll get justice in the end.
About how servants can get power over time—how they turn invisible.
Stories about saying the right things, doing the right things, playing the right part up until the moment comes.
And then throwing off the mask and fighting.
And it needs to be so solid that even if they don’t understand now, even if they forget, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren can find the meanings waiting for them in there. ”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
The old woman looked away, and then back at him. He wanted to go on, to explain all the reasons for her to do what he said. His instincts told him to stay quiet and give her space.
“The Gallantists had a tradition like that,” she said. “They built a whole body of folktales around Shavas Rey, the sleeping god, and how she would wake at the end of time to remake the world.”
“That, yes. Something like that. Grab as many of the old stories as you can. That would be great. And it would give us cover. Even if they listen in, they’ll hear things that maybe they also heard when they were spying on us before the invasion.
Then it just looks like continuity. If we told the stories before the Carryx came, they won’t think they’re about us now.
That’s perfect. But I don’t have that, and you do.
And if you need to make something new, you can do that too. ”
She shook her head, refusing, but the motion wasn’t as sharp now.
He took her hand, looked into her eyes. “So listen to me. Here’s where you stand.
I have just inducted you into a secret conspiracy to destroy the Carryx.
When you came out here, you didn’t know about it.
Now you do. So when you go back through that archway, you have two options.
Either you go straight—and I mean straight —to Ekur-Tkalal, tell it everything I just told you, and have me killed, or else you can help me. ”
She pulled her hand back. “And if I rat you out and you die, I’ve committed all the sins I despise you for.”
“Yes,” Dafyd said.
Her smile started at her eyes and flowed down. When she looked up at him, there was a brightness in her he hadn’t seen before. Maybe a hunger.
“There she is,” Uuya Tomos said, tapping his sternum with her index finger. “Now I see Dory.”