tiresome entreaties you please.”
“You…just want me to sit here?”
“And talk with me.”
She frowned. He ate, watching her with that scarred, crooked smile.
“About what?” she asked finally.
He opened both arms, gesturing to the whole world.
“And in exchange, you’ll consider ending the war.”
“Never,” he said. “But I will allow you to ask. Are we agreed?”
“I guess so.” Lan picked a grape from its fellows—the only other fruit she recognized, apart from peaches—and ate it. She wasn’t hungry any more, was in fact a bit nauseous and overfull, but the chance to eat a grape was more than she could resist. “Can I talk about the dead or is that considered tiresome?”
“It is tiresome, but I suppose if I forbid it, you’ll have nothing of your own experience to speak of. Speak then, but choose your words well. My patience for criticism is thin.”
Lan ate another grape and thought. At last, she said, “Do you control them, like puppets, or just bring them back and let them go, like a toy you wind up and release?”
He lifted his head and stared at her a moment before resuming his meal. “The latter, although there are degrees to which I ‘wind’ my toys.”
“So the only ones you control are the Eaters.”
“Not even they.”
“Then why do they attack us?”
“In all creatures, there exists the animal urge to kill and feed. Humans imagine themselves a civilized exception, but those you call Eaters betray their true instincts, when all the manners and moral constraints are relieved. No, I do not aim them at your settlements and cry havoc, I merely wake them to a sense of hunger with no sense of consequence.”
“Merely.”
“I could have raised them with all their animal urges intact. Imagine, if you will, the endless tides of the dead seeking actively to drive invading rivals from their territory.” He took a deep drink from his cup and smiled at her. “Or to mate.”
She could not quite keep the thoughts that rose in her at that off her face.
“But no, my intent was one of benign co-existence,” he went on. “The Eaters are not meant to exterminate humanity, but only to keep it at bay so that I and my few favored may live in peace.”
“Benign? How can you even say that?”
“And how can you claim otherwise?” he countered. “They are the least of my creations, possessing the very palest spark of life. They have no capacity to reason, no understanding of weapons or tools, and lack all sense of self-preservation. Can you deny they are confounded by the least defenses? A wall that even a child could climb will hold back their multitudes indefinitely. A simple latch that a dog might be taught to paw at will forever remain beyond their ability to open. And you can well afford to wait them out as they mill around your settlements, can’t you? Their flesh has no integrity, for I have raised them to rot. Even in this poor corner of the world, they are reduced to harmless bones in months. It is human perversity that demands you cleave to your holdings here, for in other warmer, wetter climes, no Eater can retain cohesion more than a few days. And what the elements do not undo, the hungry hordes of insects and scavenging beasts consume. Still, you must imagine yourself beset and waste precious resources and even more precious lives to plink away at an enemy that would be of absolutely no threat to you if you just left them alone !”
His sudden shout at the end of what had been a calm, if caustic, speech made her flinch. He stopped there, glaring and breathing hard through the mouth-slit of his mask, then waved away the guards who had looked in at them and leaned back in his throne.
“But the living will never leave the dead alone,” he said, once more calm. “No more than they will leave me and my Children alone. The dead are an offense to the living and always have been. I understand that and I accept that there shall never be peace, but still I have made my
“You…just want me to sit here?”
“And talk with me.”
She frowned. He ate, watching her with that scarred, crooked smile.
“About what?” she asked finally.
He opened both arms, gesturing to the whole world.
“And in exchange, you’ll consider ending the war.”
“Never,” he said. “But I will allow you to ask. Are we agreed?”
“I guess so.” Lan picked a grape from its fellows—the only other fruit she recognized, apart from peaches—and ate it. She wasn’t hungry any more, was in fact a bit nauseous and overfull, but the chance to eat a grape was more than she could resist. “Can I talk about the dead or is that considered tiresome?”
“It is tiresome, but I suppose if I forbid it, you’ll have nothing of your own experience to speak of. Speak then, but choose your words well. My patience for criticism is thin.”
Lan ate another grape and thought. At last, she said, “Do you control them, like puppets, or just bring them back and let them go, like a toy you wind up and release?”
He lifted his head and stared at her a moment before resuming his meal. “The latter, although there are degrees to which I ‘wind’ my toys.”
“So the only ones you control are the Eaters.”
“Not even they.”
“Then why do they attack us?”
“In all creatures, there exists the animal urge to kill and feed. Humans imagine themselves a civilized exception, but those you call Eaters betray their true instincts, when all the manners and moral constraints are relieved. No, I do not aim them at your settlements and cry havoc, I merely wake them to a sense of hunger with no sense of consequence.”
“Merely.”
“I could have raised them with all their animal urges intact. Imagine, if you will, the endless tides of the dead seeking actively to drive invading rivals from their territory.” He took a deep drink from his cup and smiled at her. “Or to mate.”
She could not quite keep the thoughts that rose in her at that off her face.
“But no, my intent was one of benign co-existence,” he went on. “The Eaters are not meant to exterminate humanity, but only to keep it at bay so that I and my few favored may live in peace.”
“Benign? How can you even say that?”
“And how can you claim otherwise?” he countered. “They are the least of my creations, possessing the very palest spark of life. They have no capacity to reason, no understanding of weapons or tools, and lack all sense of self-preservation. Can you deny they are confounded by the least defenses? A wall that even a child could climb will hold back their multitudes indefinitely. A simple latch that a dog might be taught to paw at will forever remain beyond their ability to open. And you can well afford to wait them out as they mill around your settlements, can’t you? Their flesh has no integrity, for I have raised them to rot. Even in this poor corner of the world, they are reduced to harmless bones in months. It is human perversity that demands you cleave to your holdings here, for in other warmer, wetter climes, no Eater can retain cohesion more than a few days. And what the elements do not undo, the hungry hordes of insects and scavenging beasts consume. Still, you must imagine yourself beset and waste precious resources and even more precious lives to plink away at an enemy that would be of absolutely no threat to you if you just left them alone !”
His sudden shout at the end of what had been a calm, if caustic, speech made her flinch. He stopped there, glaring and breathing hard through the mouth-slit of his mask, then waved away the guards who had looked in at them and leaned back in his throne.
“But the living will never leave the dead alone,” he said, once more calm. “No more than they will leave me and my Children alone. The dead are an offense to the living and always have been. I understand that and I accept that there shall never be peace, but still I have made my
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