Pawns

Requiem of the Moth S03 C03

Content warnings¹

I would have you create a puppet twin for me. Do this and you will stand at the top with me, always.

Yun bows at the waist. Lifting his head, he meets the yellow eyes of the woman who said those words to him six yarns ago. Not enough time to cool his white-hot rage. It’s a struggle to keep his voice bland. “I am at your service as requested, my lady.”

Zakiva doesn’t offer him a seat. Instead, she peers at him from her ornate carved bench, surrounded by not one or two but four unblinking puppets dressed in servant tunics. This terrace, located behind her quarters high up in the Noe clan mansion, is comfortably furnished with benches, tables, cushions and even two scraggly pale vines looping around the entryway. A small fire burns in the iron brazier next to Zakiva, the height of luxury. The most striking feature, however, are the high rock wall and ceiling: aglow with blue-green mineral veins. This terrace has always been part of the reigning Noe lord’s or lady’s quarters. Yun covets it not so much for its beauty but for the security, surrounded by the clan and impenetrable mountain on all sides.

“If you thought the title of treasurer gave you the right to decide clan matters on your own, I regret granting it to you.”

Yun has never been good at grovelling. Nevertheless, he bows again. “My humblest apologies. I suspected you would be less than pleased but something had to be done fast, to avoid losing one of our most valued allies. Name your price and I will pay it.”

Faint giggling. Zakiva’s daughter Limei lounges on a bench nearby, nibbling on candied snacks and observing him with eyes the same shade of yellow as mother’s.

Zakiva scoffs. “Valued allies? No moth catcher is that good. If one drip house is ruined, another takes its place sooner or later.”

Yun swallows the spark of rage scorching his throat. What irony, that his own clan head would throw the cold blood into his face that Usira keeps accusing him of. Commoners are all the same. Replaceable. Faceless. Pawns. Yun has learned otherwise. It’s only one commoner that he cares for but with a start, he realises it doesn’t matter. Caring for one has opened his eyes to all of them.

It will weaken your standing. Ulan should be laughing to herself. She was right. There’s no wriggling out of this one.

“You, however…” Zakiva smiles. After the accident, she has never been able to look at his face again—instead, she stretches lazily and gestures at the nearest puppet. The male leans down and she caresses his cheek. “You are the product of generations honing their craft, building upon the research and innovations of their predecessors. It would not do to punish you too harshly. Instead, I would merely have you fulfil what I asked of you six yarns ago.”

Yun tenses.

Zakiva keeps caressing the puppet, gazing at his porcelain face. Her puppets have always been sorry shadows of his, obedient but clumsy, artless. No one could mistake them for anything more. “Construct my perfect double to shield me from harm. Your twin servants are as impressive today as they were back when you created them. I have been told you spend considerable time in your workshop. Surely your craft has improved.”

His workshop is locked and secured several times over. No one but him, Zhiva and Zhiven has breached its threshold. No one knows what lies on the table there, completed but for that last life-giving breath. His craft hasn’t improved so much as leapfrogged into the darkest, profoundest depths of puppetry. Depths that no Noe has glimpsed before.

Zakiva can’t know, not yet. She has been lusting after his puppets for a long time. He bows again, hiding his unease. “As you wish, my lady.”

What lucky irony, he muses as he takes the stairs back into the mansion two at a time, that Zakiva can’t bear to look at him. He gets away with much that others would have glimpsed in his expression.

He’s made up his mind. It’s almost as if she invites deception and so he will procure a gemstone dagger to stab her in the back with.

---

The Temple of the Deep melts into the darkest corner of the city, wedged at the foot of the clan quarter but also close to the lively drip house district. The priesthood has always been connected to both, making them one of the most powerful factions of Kandamsin.

Before entering, Yun fishes a new earring with a teardrop-shaped rose quartz pendant out of his sleeve and puts it on. In the outer hall, he is met by a young priest—black robes, black-dyed hair—and shown into a meeting chamber. Shuli sits by the blood pool, sipping from a silver cup. At the sound of his footsteps, she rises and meets him halfway. “I would not have believed it possible but you did it. Izo is overjoyed. You have my gratitude.”

He lets her clasp his hands for a brief moment. “I’d rather have your support.”

She glances at the rose quartz earring. “It is an excellent piece you selected. It suits you although I am surprised to see you wear a soft colour such as this.”

“My tastes have been undergoing a change.”

“Evidently.” Her smile is as far away from Zakiva’s grimace as the Noe mansion is from the Zillia Downs. “I was consulting with the priests about the marriage. We have come to a preliminary agreement. Sit and enjoy the comforts of their hospitality with me a while longer.”

As Yun joins her on the soft grey cushions, shot through with silver and gold embroidery, the same young priest serves another cup of tea so dark it appears black. It’s fragrant with spice, leaving a pleasant burn on his tongue.

“There is no blood in this one,” Shuli explains when he eyes the liquid. “You should put more time into cultivating your relationship with the priesthood. It never hurts to be on good terms.”

Yun tucks that piece of advice away. As Vessi, his work is as far removed from the priesthood and their domain as it gets but his aunt is right: Every clan leader and high advisor frequents the Temple of the Deep, consulting and employing the priests for weddings, funerals, and other ritual blessings. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship: The Deep sanctifying the clans’ claims to power, the clans keeping the temple’s coffers filled.

What Shuli is implying is that he might find himself at the top of their clan sooner rather than later. He hopes it’s not in the way Zakiva wants. You will stand at the top with me, always.

I’m not good at sharing.

Then again, he hardly lusts for the clan headship the way others do. It’s practically walking into the hunting net on his own too feet. If he could only find an amenable or easily controlled ally, someone more palatable to the public…

“You command respect both in our clan and beyond. You’ve weathered the storms of politics for longer than I have been alive,” he says. Shuli swirls the liquid in her cup but he can tell from how she holds her head that she’s listening. “Far be it from me to seed discord between old friends but you must have noticed that our esteemed leader is losing her touch.”

“It is her greed that has elevated her to her current position.”

“The dose makes the poison,” Yun says darkly. If Zakiva’s greed was a sharpened spear point once, it’s whittled and rotted down to a blunt edge now. Construct my perfect double. Her request for protection might be genuine but more than half of it is her desire to show off, parade the best puppetry the Noe can offer in front of other clans. It’s an open secret among their relatives, however, that Zakiva hasn’t set foot in a workshop in at least six yarns. Her power is borrowed.

Shuli eyes him, likely gauging his sincerity, how deep he is into plotting a coup. He returns her gaze. After everything they’ve been through with Usira and Izo, they’re beyond candied words and clever feinting. “Who would you put in her place?”

Of course, she would strike at the heart of the matter. Yun grins. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Come back with all the details decided. We shall take the future in our hands then.” She drains her cup and sets it down with a clack. The young priest appears to refill it from his iron kettle.

As Yun leaves, he doesn’t delude himself into thinking she hasn’t identified his bluff for what it was: There are no other candidates for the Noe headship—only him and Shuli herself.

Usira, he thinks into the morning gloom, learn fast. You’re forcing my hand.

Author Notes

Wondering what Shuli meant about Yun’s rose quartz earring? It’s a throwback to chapter 10 of the previous season when he negotiated for her support in exchange for his silence about her son Izo’s illegal procuring of cinnamon. To seal the deal, she offered him one piece of jewellery created by her favourite drip house. The rose quartz is the piece he chose.

In my efforts to write ahead, I have several chapters waiting in the wings now. This means I haven’t been thinking about Requiem too much since going back to work last week. Instead I’ve been reading David Bowie. A Life by Dylan Jones and thinking about Bowie as an artist. The way he created different characters for his music and the stage is deeply inspiring to me.

I’ve also been thinking about what to do with Occam’s Lab. I love that all of you, dear readers, are supporting me but I won’t deny that I had loftier ambitions for this newsletter. After two years, it’s not going as well as I hoped it would so I’m thinking of what to change. Rebrand is a nasty marketing word but it describes what I’m thinking of.

Most likely it’s only the presentation that will change, not so much the content—don’t worry, I’ll still find a way to wedge in my fiction somewhere.

1. Elitism