The fleet had come from the District of Districts—one hundred and seventy-three giant machines serving as backbone to humanity’s combined fleet. Each airship was dressed in the name of a hero or famous battle, or some vivid emotion, or moral concepts that even the wicked enemies would appreciate. There was the Fire at Night, the Wettle, the Passion, the Honest, Raging Fist, the Marqlet, Vengeance, Shattered Wings, the Chew, and the venerable Destiny, older than any living man but holding its hydrogen as well as any of its mates. Every ship was held aloft by the best corona bladders, tough as steel and a fraction the weight. Each had a skeleton of corona bone draped with skins and scales pulled from a thousand dead monsters. The fleet moved together, like a mishmash of dissimilar birds forced into one long flight. Some of the ships were little fletches, bird-shaped and lightly armored to allow for speed and endless grace. There were bigger fletches with banks of engines, a few towing complacent, balloon-like panoplies. There were warrior-class spears and battle-class behemoths, and a dozen fast-freighters carried stockpiles of fuel and food and munitions. And the fleet was bearing quite a lot more—a stew of orders and guidelines, ranks and egos, thousands of soldiers who had never walked on coral, and one overriding command ruling all others:
Protect the flagship.
Nestled in the armada’s heart, the Ruler of the Storm was both safe and magnificent. The younger sibling to the Ruler of the Wind, the machine was only two-thirds finished when her sister was destroyed. But a useful bureaucratic panic allowed the construction to be finished in record time. The Wind’s crew was dropped like gears into their old tasks, minus the original captain who was given a public trial leading to a loud plea of guilt by incompetence. Then the Archon of Archons spoke to a select audience, telling supporters that while old Merit played a role in the disaster, he appreciated the slayer’s motivation. He was also a father, and however wrong the methods and however shameful that day, the Archon used his office to grant the hero a full pardon for that enormous crime as well as for any and all failures of character during the last thousand days.
“Remember the pardon, son?”
Every word returned to King, as well as his father’s burning humiliation.
“No,” said King. “It’s lost to me.”
Smiling, List said, “We know better than that.”
The past was usually a prologue to some little lesson.
“Now what if I’d accepted everyone’s wise advice? Put our most famous slayer on trial, the man standing for a cause that nobody had ever imagined possible. I would have won an effective verdict. Our allies in the outer Districts would be warned. No one would doubt that I was in total command. But that’s all I would have won—a lone judgment underscoring what everyone already appreciated. Words riding soft white leather, framed in my office and worth nothing.
“The boy was going to remain inside the Corona District. Prima would make certain of that. Diamond is hers, and contesting her ownership would have been a massive waste of time and resources.”
And here was the lesson, King knew.
“I win and the rest of history plays out as it has. Merit languishes in jail, while his son runs free in this District, despising me. Then the evil and the idiotic try to murder Diamond just the same. And what’s my position in that scenario? My fleet goes where it wishes. Nobody can stop us. But look at the people above us. Better and better, you know how to read our moods, our fears. Study those faces. Find one face isn’t thrilled to see us, threatening our common enemies with quick brutal law.”
King and his father were sharing one of the observatory blisters, riding on the Ruler’s top spine.
“Are you looking at the faces, son?”
“I’m watching your face, sir.”
Smiles were never simple. Father’s grin was smug but cautious.
“Well, yes,” said the little man. “Take my word for it. If I’d listened to my shrewd advisors, we’d be looked upon as invaders. Even as it stands, I’m sure that a few of our supposed allies think we’re responsible for this miserable mess.”
King asked, “But why would you want to kill the boy?”
“Your brother,” said Father.
King stared at the changing smile.
“I can’t say this enough: we’re emotional beasts, quick to judge and stubborn when it comes to defending our opinions.” Father paused, eyes turned upwards. “But worse, we are an exceptionally, shamelessly lazy species. If people look at me as their enemy—if I bring rage to their bellies, their hearts—then I must have been the agent who ordered bombs exploded on the top of the world. I’m the one who killed thousands in hopes of murdering one soul. And why hold that wicked notion? Because smart opinions involve quite a lot of tedious, unthankful work, and we are too busy to bother.”
King made a rough wet noise with his eating mouth, and with his breathing mouth, he said, “Lazy and stupid too.”
He was provoking Father, but the man was clever enough to see it.
“If only we were stupid,” said List. “No, we carry big brains. Not unbreakable like yours. But I’ve never met the man whose head was filled up in one lifetime. And the smartest of us, if he wants, can feed that lard so many carefully picked, well-pickled facts. We’re lazy and instinctive, and we find it so easy to believe what’s unlikely, and we fight for what pleases us while ignoring most everything that’s hard, and what genius we have builds elaborate lies that have no good function except to put us at the center of this glorious, eternal world.”
King finally looked up. The fleet had reached the point where the overhead canopy suddenly grew thin, great old branches missing their ends and then absent entirely. The Ruler’s engines changed pitch and speed as the airship slid beneath the tree called Hanner. These were little blackwood trees, barely sticks compared to the giants of home, and ballast was being dropped—thousands of buckets of water released into the midday light—and suspended on rainbows, the flagship began its ascent into the enormous gouge that had been hacked into the forest.
King was thoroughly impressed.
What he saw and what wasn’t seen captivated him.
Verbal accounts weren’t adequate. The sheer volume of lost trees took him by surprise, and so did the blackened carcasses of buildings clinging to Hanner’s fire-ravaged trunk. Crude new gun emplacements had replaced those destroyed last evening. Hundreds of little civilian blimps had been brought from everywhere, apparently to do nothing but look tiny against the carnage. Banners hung on the surviving trees, names asking other names to come and find them. Countless survivors sat on the brinks of landings and sheered-off limbs. They were watching the Ruler of the Storm climb towards them. The Ruler bristled with cannons and armor, and the front battleworks brandished rockets bigger than any papio wing, each tipped with the Creation’s most powerful explosives. Yet King couldn’t see the promised relief or pride or even the scornful stares of hatred. Father was wrong. The greatest ship in the world, and the most that it earned was weary curiosity from fat brains already too full with too much.
King imagined the slaughter of the falling trees. The mind gave fire and misery to thousands of nameless bodies, and his hearts began to race, and the armored plates rose from his body. His rage was as pure and sharp as it had been in a very long while, and he was at least as crazed towards every enemy as any human could be.
An elegantly uniformed officer had appeared inside the blister.