#theclos ramasyne

[alarawriting]

Reblogging the entire 52 Project because now I’m done!

There will be a 53rd story posted at 5 pm on Friday, Sept 1, because it took me so long to get this done, I am now 53.

52 Project #34: The Anadvocate

She sat within a glade full of life, perched on top of death.  Here at the equator of the Green World, the heat was intense enough that even she felt it, though shielding herself from the killing heat was instinctive, second nature by now.  Rivulets of sweat ran down her dark skin, plastered her long black hair to her naked body.  If she wanted to, she could increase her shielding, remove the heat from her person, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to care.

Birds chirruped and cawed and cackled all around her.  The air was full of the hum of insects and the cries of small reptiles.  It lay around her, thick, humid, unstirring. From here she could not see the sky without using farsight– all around her was green jungle, making the world dim. At the moment it wasn’t raining, though that could change any minute now.  

The things that lived here were adapted for the heat as Humans were not, as even Theclos were not without using their powers.  There were very few mammals here; no need to be a creature who could retain body heat in a place so hot. No Green Worlder Humans, none of the Theclos’ protected worshipers, lived within a thousand miles of this place.  And while the Theclos could come here, they generally didn’t– too much work, to shield from such intense heat, for so little gain.  The life that teemed around her wasn’t sentient.  If all of it died in a flash of murderous light, it would be no more than the Blue Worlders did to the life of their own world all the time.

It would be a reminder, a reproach to her people.  And it would be no less than life deserved, when Istanya no longer lived.  

The device seemed to pulse beneath her, a black sun waiting to be unleashed to devour all around it. It was a Blue World invention, a “clean” nuclear bomb.  Which was to say, it would make the land radioactive for thousands of years, it would annihilate her and all the land for miles around and make a crater of glass visible even from orbit, it would produce a flash of destroying light that would blind anyone looking at it, but it would not pump fallout into the upper atmosphere and let it spread around the world to poison innocents.  It would be her death and the death of the animals that lived in this jungle, no one else.

She had come here unobserved– or at least, she hadn’t sensed any observation, and usually they didn’t bother to be subtle with her.  So she assumed that, for the moment, no one was watching.  Perhaps they’d grown tired of watching. Certainly they’d grown tired of listening– assuming one could be said to have grown tired of something one had never done. If they’d ever listened, maybe it wouldn’t have come to this.

 I could do it, she thought, looking out at the jungle around her, feeling the smooth metal of the nuke underneath her, pressing against her skin. If I really wanted to. I could do it in a moment. No one would have time to stop me.

 Do I really want to?

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[alarawriting]

52 Project #34: The Anadvocate

She sat within a glade full of life, perched on top of death.  Here at the equator of the Green World, the heat was intense enough that even she felt it, though shielding herself from the killing heat was instinctive, second nature by now.  Rivulets of sweat ran down her dark skin, plastered her long black hair to her naked body.  If she wanted to, she could increase her shielding, remove the heat from her person, but she simply couldn't bring herself to care.

Birds chirruped and cawed and cackled all around her.  The air was full of the hum of insects and the cries of small reptiles.  It lay around her, thick, humid, unstirring. From here she could not see the sky without using farsight-- all around her was green jungle, making the world dim. At the moment it wasn't raining, though that could change any minute now.  

The things that lived here were adapted for the heat as Humans were not, as even Theclos were not without using their powers.  There were very few mammals here; no need to be a creature who could retain body heat in a place so hot. No Green Worlder Humans, none of the Theclos' protected worshipers, lived within a thousand miles of this place.  And while the Theclos could come here, they generally didn't-- too much work, to shield from such intense heat, for so little gain.  The life that teemed around her wasn't sentient.  If all of it died in a flash of murderous light, it would be no more than the Blue Worlders did to the life of their own world all the time.

It would be a reminder, a reproach to her people.  And it would be no less than life deserved, when Istanya no longer lived.  

The device seemed to pulse beneath her, a black sun waiting to be unleashed to devour all around it. It was a Blue World invention, a "clean" nuclear bomb.  Which was to say, it would make the land radioactive for thousands of years, it would annihilate her and all the land for miles around and make a crater of glass visible even from orbit, it would produce a flash of destroying light that would blind anyone looking at it, but it would not pump fallout into the upper atmosphere and let it spread around the world to poison innocents.  It would be her death and the death of the animals that lived in this jungle, no one else.

She had come here unobserved-- or at least, she hadn't sensed any observation, and usually they didn't bother to be subtle with her.  So she assumed that, for the moment, no one was watching.  Perhaps they'd grown tired of watching. Certainly they'd grown tired of listening-- assuming one could be said to have grown tired of something one had never done. If they'd ever listened, maybe it wouldn't have come to this.

 I could do it, she thought, looking out at the jungle around her, feeling the smooth metal of the nuke underneath her, pressing against her skin. If I really wanted to. I could do it in a moment. No one would have time to stop me.

 Do I really want to?

So alive, so vital, so vibrant, this jungle.  So full of sound and smell and constant motion.  And if she acted, if she triggered the bomb beneath her with her mental powers, it would be converted in a second into a giant glass tombstone. Her death would be painted in brilliant light across the sky, seen by thousands of Green Worlders who would look up at the light and wonder.  And for thousands of years a crater of radioactive glass would lie in the center of the teeming jungle, visible only to her people, and to the Blue Worlders if they ever came here.  A mute testimony to the destruction of a young and shining potential, a reproach to her people of their betrayal, their hypocrisy, a reminder of the danger of the Blue Worlders.

She wasn't entirely sure she wanted this. The grief that coiled blackly through her soul might abate, in a few hundred years-- she knew that. She wasn't foolish enough to believe she would always feel this empty, this lonely, this bitter. In time, she could recover and get on with her life, if she wanted to.

But if she ever recovered from her rage at her own kind, at the stupidity that had condemned those she loved and the hypocrisy that praised that stupidity-- if she could ever come to accept that, she'd be better off dead. They had betrayed everything they'd taught her to believe in. Perhaps it happened as one got older. Perhaps the ideals of one's youth, the belief in the superiority of their species and their moral codes, all retreated into the endless political games. She would very much rather be dead than live long enough for that to happen to her.

And it would be different if she had any hope of changing the system. She'd gladly live with the hypocrites if there was any chance at all she could make them understand what they'd done-- but they wouldn't listen. She was too young, they said. Not objective enough. If she were older, more distanced from the problem, surely she would understand why her father and her sister had had to die. It was a mercy, really. There was no other way. When she was older, she would understand.

Well, she wasn't going to get any older. If it took her death to make her voice heard, so be it. She would die spectacularly, immolate herself in the sight of millions, and leave behind her an eternal silent reproach. Really, what else could she do?

She focused her mind on the bomb beneath her, and prepared for oblivion.

"I wouldn't if I were you."

The voice behind her was that of an elder. So. She had been observed after all. And why should that come as a surprise? "You're not me," she said flatly.  If she'd cared more, she might have started in surprise-- she'd never felt the warp of a teleport near her-- but elders were talented, and the truth was, she couldn't care enough to be surprised.

"True. But I'd suggest you shouldn't, either."

"And am I supposed to care what you suggest?" She turned her attention to face the other. He was indeed an elder, a very short man with deep black skin, like coal to her chocolate.  She didn't immediately recognize him, but then, there were twelve thousand Theclos, and without being connected she couldn't possibly be expected to remember them all.  His face was lined and weathered, his long hair was white and wispy, clouding around his face, and he wore nothing but a knee-length white linen skirt that did nothing to tell her his position of status.  Very old, certainly very powerful-- he was hovering, not touching the dirt, and she could feel how effortless it was for him to hold himself there. Her lip curled with sarcasm. "Oh, excuse me. I am supposed to be groveling in the dirt that an elder would grace me with his presence, much less condescend to give me suggestions. Have I committed a social gaffe?"

"I wouldn't worry about it if I were you," he said. "You seem to have bigger things to worry about." The amused tone in his voice made it clear he put little stock in an elder's prerogatives.

"You're quite right. I do. So why don't you go away and leave me to them?"

"Let you annihilate yourself, not to mention all these plants and animals, without trying to talk you out of it? No no no no no. That's not the way I work. You should know better."

She scowled. "There's no people anywhere near this jungle. And Theclos who can murder their own kind have no right to weep over poor poor animals."

"Maybe not, but you are as bound to protect the Green World as the rest of us.  That includes not wiping out all the life within miles simply because you feel like killing yourself."

"Fine.  I'll go to the desert and finish myself off. Will that satisfy you?"

"Let's take this from the top," he said, floating over and sitting down next to her. She felt him focusing multiple levels of attention on her. The sensation made her uncomfortable, though she did her best to block it. "Why do you want to kill yourself?"

"Why pretend you don't know?" she countered.

"For the sake of argument, of course. I've heard you like to argue. Explain to me in plain, simple terms. What do you hope to accomplish?"

She turned away darkly. "This is stupid. You know perfectly well why I want to do this."

"But I don't, believe it or not. I haven't probed beneath your shields. I consider it rude." He smiled winningly, showing bright white teeth. She wasn't won.

"Doesn't matter. Unless you've sealed your mind and locked yourself in a cave for the past ten years, you know my situation."

“Oh, yes, I’d heard. Tragic, isn’t it.” He turned away from her with a studiedly bland expression. “Half-Blue Worlder, half-Theclos twins born where one of them is damaged, unable to connect to the Heart or draw power. And then the powerless twin tricks the empowered one into giving up her powers. Unfortunately resulting in her being captured on the Blue World and tortured, resulting in both her and her father needing to be put down. I imagine the remaining twin must feel a lot of guilt."

"That wasn't how it was!" Ramasyne screamed, knowing he was trying to provoke her, but unable to keep from being provoked. "I didn't make Istanya cut herself off from the Heart-- I begged her not to do it! I never said anything to make her do it! I never wanted--" She choked off the furious torrent of words, realizing she had walked directly into his trap.

"So you begged her not to do it. And she did it anyway." He shrugged. "Hardly sounds very stable. Maybe we're better off without her."

That one was far too blatant. She wasn't going to fall for it. "Refusing to obey your twin sister is hardly a marker of instability," she said icily.

"So why do you want to kill yourself?"

"Isn't it obvious to you, O Omniscient Elder?"

He shook his head. "Refusing to explain yourself, assuming your audience has read your mind, refusing to state the terms of the argument... bad form, child. Very bad. No wonder the Inquest discounted your testimony, if this is how you argue."

Her eyes narrowed coldly. "I didn't refuse to explain myself to the Inquest. I explained myself in great detail. At great length. A great number of times. And I just don't feel like going through it all again."

"So you're killing yourself because you're tired of arguing?"

"No!" she shouted. "I'm killing myself because they won't let me argue! Because no one wants to listen to me, no one wants to consider for one picosecond that I actually know what I'm talking about, that just because I'm young doesn't necessarily mean I'm stupid! I can't get them to listen to me!"

"And you think that if you kill yourself, they will feel guilty, and consider your final arguments in the light of your death."

She shrugged. "One can hope," she said sullenly.

"One can, if one's naive. If one knows any better, unfortunately, hope is out of the question. Do you know what your death will tell them?"

"That I have an overly developed sense for the melodramatic?"

"Everyone does. You’re a Theclos, it comes with the territory. No. What your suicide will tell them is that you are dangerously unstable, and that they made a mistake in not destroying you along with Istanya and your father. Is that what you want them to know?"

"Maybe it was a mistake," she snapped.

"Yes, but do you want them to know that? So soon? Before you've made them pay for the mistake?" He floated back up, shaking his head. "I assure you, your death won't embarrass the Convocation. Those who stood as Inquestors at the trial will merely observe that your mother’s insistence that you not be cured of your problem until you were nearly fully grown damaged you, possibly even worse than Istanya after what she suffered, and that you should have been put down with her. After all, a Theclos who can contemplate suicide can contemplate murder, can't she? Or genocide, perhaps?"

"I've been tested for genocidal tendencies more times than I care to count. I've come up clean each time."

"True. But emotional damage can take different forms in different Theclos. Can anybody guarantee that the next Theclos to see a sibling tortured won't turn genocidal? Your death will have proven the inherent instability in one who's suffered such a loss-- just as your father's attempt at genocide ‘proved’ that a Theclos whose child is destroyed is unstable and should be euthanized as well. This incident makes future law, you know. The eyes of all Mt. Kethos are on you. And if you kill yourself, you only prove your opponents' points. After all, how could a child who committed suicide have possibly been sane enough to make a logical argument? No, your points can all be put down to your incipient breakdown, and ignored. You could hardly do more damage to your argument if you went out and wiped out the Amerins."

"The Blue Worlders are barbarians," she muttered. "Am I supposed to blame primitives for being primitive? Oh, the Amerins are the worst. They think they're wonderfully advanced, and yet they can do..." Against her will, she remembered how she'd found her sister, what the Blue Worlders in that secret research installation in Ameria had done to her. How could even sick members of any sapient species imagine such horrors, let alone inflict them on another sapient being? "...what they did," she finished, sick at heart with the reminder.

“Sounds rather harsh. Are you sure you have no genocidal tendencies?”

“I’d like to make them realize what they are,” she admitted. “Mock them. Show them what a pathetic, barbaric little nation they really are. But genocide? No.” She looked up at him, her gaze burning in intensity. “It wasn’t Blue Worlders who killed my sister. It wasn’t even the traitor, though they’d never have taken Istanya if it weren’t for Vashtas. It was us. The glorious, powerful, vastly superior Convocation of the Theclos. We killed her-- for no greater crime than the stupidity to get herself captured by barbarians.”

“Stupidity is its own reward.”

“But she didn’t deserve it! She was a kid!” The old man’s expression quirked with amusement that she would so define her twin, when she’d just defined herself as old enough to be heard. “Yes, go on, laugh, but I know it. I am young. And I-- I’ve seen what the Green Worlders can do to each other, and the even more horrifying things that the Blue Worlders can do. I may be young, but I’m not naive. Is it a crime for a young person who’s never seen anything bad happen to anyone who matters to believe she’s indestructible? When for all intents and purposes she was?”

“She gave up being indestructibile. She chose it. She went to the Blue World, she went to Vashtas to block herself from the Heart, because she wanted to know what it was like to be powerless.”

Ramasyne shook her head violently. “She wanted to know what it was like to be me. She never understood--”

“Understood what?”

The girl’s voice was harsh. “All my life people have been trying to get me to resent my sister. Istanya herself didn’t understand. No one ever understood.” She looked up at him again. “I was never powerless. What it meant to be me wasn’t to be powerless. I was a girl with a Human for a mother, and my father and my sister were gods.” The bitterness in her voice brought it close to the breaking point-- but she was still in control. Breaking down would serve her no purpose here. She would stay in control. “Istanya did anything I wanted her to. She never dominated me. I dominated her. She and I had our link, and she was linked to the Convocation... to the Heart. I never thought of myself as being powerless. Never helpless, until--”

After a moment, he finished the statement for her. “Until she left you.”

She remembered the argument. She hadn’t understood why Istanya was so obsessed with this powers/no powers business. Admittedly, it was a nuisance that she had to ask Istanya if she wanted to do anything fun, but Istanya could read her mind, so it wasn’t like it was hard. Theclos children could, on occasion, be vicious to one another, and both she and Istanya were mocked sometimes for having a Human mother, especially one from the Blue World. But for the most part they found their pleasure in picking on those who could present a challenge. No child would dare touch a powerless one, especially not a powerless one whose twin sister was already at full adult strength. Not only was there no challenge-- no fun-- but it could get their butts kicked and get them in serious trouble with their parents. Ramasyne had, in fact, been perfectly free to taunt and argue with children far more powerful than she was, secure in the knowledge that if they got angry and attacked her physically there would be hell to pay. So she never suffered vulnerability, never suffered fear.

But Istanya was convinced that the world must look different to Ramasyne, that by not being connected to the Heart she was somehow… purer. More herself. The Theclos connected to the Heart formed the Convocation, the telepathic body of pure democratic rule within Mt. Kethos, where memories could be exchanged and all information could be shared, instantly, amongst the entire Theclos race. Ramasyne was connected to Istanya, but no other Theclos, not even Father. The incredible powers the Theclos wielded were mostly dependent on the connection to the Heart, and the Convocation; Istanya was sure that by not being connected to the Convocation, Ramasyne was a true Theclos, that the rest of them were… something else. Something she thought might possibly be inferior, for all their power.

Father had taught them to be independent-minded, that maintaining their own identity, even against the pressure of the Convocation, was the most important thing possible. Mother, who was Human and had no powers, had taught them both that the worth of a person wasn’t in their power. Both Mother and Father had refused the genetic therapy that could have connected Ramasyne to the Heart in early childhood, the way it happened for most of them; that meant the only option was to wait until her brain was full-grown – adult size, at least, if not fully developed – so that she could be given an implant. Ramasyne had taken this as “powers aren’t all that important and you have value as a person whether you’re powerful or not.” But Istanya had taken it differently.

Ramasyne had mostly mocked Istanya’s obsession with wanting to know what the world was like for her, Istanya’s insistence that it meant something beyond a missing piece of genetics that Ramasyne was her own person, telepathically isolated. She hadn’t thought Istanya would do anything about that obsession… until the day her father had teleported in and told him that Istanya had gone to the Blue World, and subsequently had gone missing.

The powers of the Theclos existed across the gap between the worlds – the Heart was everywhere and nowhere – but connection to the Convocation attenuated with distance. No one could reach Istanya’s mind, and there was no guarantee that any Theclos who went to the Blue World would be able to zero in on her. None of them had ever found the traitor Vashtas, when she’d fled to the Blue World, and they’d cut her connection to the Heart; she was powerless. If Istanya didn’t want to be found, she wouldn’t be.

Unless Ramasyne had a connection to the Heart. Unless Ramasyne had the power she could draw from the Heart, to amplify her connection to Istanya, and a connection to the Convocation, so she could guide the others.

Ramasyne was barely 120, then. Too young for the implant, too old for the genetic therapy even if she’d wanted it. She’d demanded the implant, over and over again. By Human standards, she’d have been the equivalent of an 11 or 12 year old child, barely into puberty by the narrowest of margins.

By now it had become obvious that Istanya had cut herself off from the Heart – something only the eldest leaders of the Convocation, and the traitor Vashtas, knew how to do. Despite this, every Theclos that Ramasyne knew had assured her over and over that Istanya could take care of herself, that there was no reason to think anything bad had happened, that it was her legal right to do this if she wished. While trying to claim that Ramasyne, at the exact same age, wasn’t mature enough to make decisions about her own brain and body.

Ramasyne had known better. Even when her father had tried to reassure her, Ramasyne was sure something terrible was happening. No one thought she could possibly know; no one thought her telepathic connection with Istanya could possibly be working at this distance, when neither of them were connected to the Heart. Her mother had spoken as if she was taking Ramasyne seriously, but advised patience, which was the last thing Ramasyne thought the situation needed.

Finally she’d gotten them to agree to the surgery. She was 125 then. They’d originally told her she’d need to be 150, but she kept having nightmares of what might be happening to Istanya. For the first time, she understood what it meant to be connected to the Convocation and the Heart, understood what she’d been missing and what Istanya had had, all her life-- but it didn’t matter. The powers were a means to an end. She had to find Istanya.

And in the end, she had still been powerless...

Ramasyne glared at the old man. “So if you know that, then why don’t you shut up with the deliberately provocative comments? You’re obviously just trying to rile me up.”

“Seems to have worked,” the elder said. “You’re answering my questions now. Some of them, at least.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. There will never be any justice. No one’s ever going to pay for killing Father and Istanya. No one’s ever even going to refuse to accept that as precedent; they’re all telling themselves how sadly necessary it is, how a parent whose child is tortured or murdered needs to be euthanized for the sake of the Humans, how this needs to be policy, when it was bullshit when it happened and it’s bullshit now. They think it was Father’s fault, what happened to Istanya. They think that if they put the right controls in place, none of their children or grandchildren will ever suffer… or they’re angry and envious that Father was allowed to procreate at all, and they want to punish Theclos who are given that opportunity.”

“And was it not your father’s fault? What happened to Istanya?”

Ramasyne shook her head. “Mother’s fault, maybe. She never told Istanya enough about the dangers; she acted like the Blue World was a perfectly normal place, like the Green World, not full of power-hungry monsters who could torture a child for five years to try to find the secret of her longevity and powers. Or maybe the entire Convocation, for locking away the important information about Vashtas so Istanya thought the woman was just an exile, not the horror she really was. The only thing Father did wrong was to not let me get the operation as soon as I asked, and I understand it. It’s not normal for a Theclos to need help or protection, not if they’re at full power. Even when they learned she wasn’t connected to the Heart, they were so used to us being invulnerable, it never occurred to them that something was seriously wrong… and I didn’t have my full powers as a Theclos. I don’t even know if I was really sensing Istanya, or if I was just worried and I happened to be right.”

“You don’t blame your father for not listening to you? At all?”

She looked down at the dirt. “What would be the point? He’s dead. If it was his fault, he suffered the ultimate price for it. His daughter was tortured, and murdered by the people who were supposed to save her, and then those people killed him too.”

“Well. You sound like you don’t think it was justified. Was he really going to annihilate that entire installation of Blue Worlders?”

Ramasyne hesitated. The elder took that as his answer. “And could you have stopped him?”

She hadn’t been able to stop him. The people who had worked there, who had been complicit in what had happened to Istanya – those, she wouldn’t have cared if he’d killed. But there were two government agents who were there to investigate, who were as horrified as the Theclos were at what they found, and there were janitors, and IT contractors who had no awareness of what the scientists at the installation were doing, and the people who restocked the vending machines, and people in the mail room, and none of them knew. None of them were complicit, because the secret agency torturing Istanya had classified everything they were doing so none of those people could have found out. They were innocent, and Father would have killed them all.

Who he should have killed were his fellow Theclos, the ones who decided that Istanya was too damaged and couldn’t be rehabilitated and should just be euthanized, like an animal, like someone who wasn’t even a Theclos, wasn’t even a person. The ones who held him and Ramasyne back, the ones who made Istanya sleep and then stopped her heart. But if Father had had the power to kill a group of his fellow Theclos, then Istanya would still be alive, because he would have protected her.

He’d been taking his rage at his daughter’s suffering and death out on the people he blamed for it, because he couldn’t take it out on the ones who’d actually killed her, and if he had limited his blame to only the people in the installation who knew what was going on and chose to work there anyway, and the traitor, Ramasyne would have supported him. But he’d wanted to destroy all the Blue Worlders in the installation, indiscriminately, and might have expanded to destroying as many Blue Worlders as he could reach, if the other Theclos hadn’t shut him down. Ramasyne had tried to stop him, but he hadn’t listened to her. He hadn’t listened to anyone. He’d cradled Istanya’s body, and murdered every Blue Worlder in the room but the two investigators, who Ramasyne had protected. And then the others had overpowered him and killed him.

“If they could knock him unconscious so they could stop his heart without hurting him, they could have knocked him unconscious and brought him back to Mt. Kethos for healing. They could have done the same for Istanya. We’d do that for a Green Worlder. We would never kill a Green Worlder for being a torture victim.”

“Green Worlders don’t have the power we do. We have a responsibility—”

“What, so we can’t ever be weak? We’re so superior that if we’re ever not so superior we need to die? We can cut people off from the Heart! A Theclos without a connection to the Heart could have all the genocidal tendencies they want, and no way to enact any of them! We let Vashtas live, but we had to kill my sister and father?”

“And do you have any theories? About why Vashtas was allowed to live, but Istanya and Rannelosom were killed?”

“Because other Theclos despised my father for taking a Human woman as his partner?”

“Sure, that might have been part of it. There’s also the possibility that Vashtas was arrested on Mt. Kethos, kept in isolation, tried, and her sentence carried out, long before she got anywhere near the Blue World, whereas both Istanya and Rannelosom were on the Blue World in an installation full of Humans. Perhaps no one was confident of their ability to keep either of them subdued long enough to get back to the Green World?”

“You weren’t there,” Ramasyne shot back. “They looked into Istanya’s mind, they saw how angry and fearful she was, and they just… they all agreed that there was no saving her. And Father and I both tried, but I’d had my powers for such a short time, I was no help. It just… all happened so fast.” She trailed off.

“Well.” The elder landed and sat in front of her, his legs in a meditation posture. “It happened and it’s over. So what do you want?”

“I want justice! Everyone who was involved in their deaths is immortal and will be part of the Convocation for thousands of years. Why is it fair that they get to live so long, with no consequences, when they killed my sister and my father? Why does the Convocation give them so much status and power?” Ramasyne stood up, finally, and paced, gesturing with her hands. “We’re supposed to be unified. The Convocation is supposed to be one body. We aren’t supposed to… we aren’t supposed to… We’re more advanced than the Humans. We don’t kill each other! We don’t do political maneuvering to destroy each other. We don’t… we don’t kill someone we should have taken home and taken care of…”

“But you know as well as I do that the Convocation, as it currently stands, does do that. And that the ones who killed your family are of high status, and will never see justice, if the Convocation remains as it is now.”

“And that’s why I planned to blow myself up,” she said sullenly.

“I can see why you thought that was a good idea. But there is a better alternative.”

She looked down at him, sneering. “Oh, I’m all ears.”

“Do you know who I am?”

For the first time in weeks, Ramasyne touched the data store of the Convocation, where all the knowledge held by all the Theclos was kept. “You’re Elder Prullelleh,” she said. “The chief anadvocate of the Convocation… what is an anadvocate?”

Prullelleh’s smile was so big his teeth almost glowed. “I am so glad you asked that,” he said, and she realized she’d fallen into a trap. At the very least, this was what he’d been aiming for when he began this conversation.

“Never mind. I don’t care.”

“You do care. You’re very curious, in fact.”

“I thought you said you weren’t probing under my shields.”

“You’re so focused on your shields. On protecting yourself from telepathy. You didn’t guard your face, Theclos Ramasyne. I saw your curiosity, before you masked it.”

“I saw how much you wanted to tell me, and I lost interest. Anything an elder wants so much has to be a terrible idea.”

“So you have no interest in changing the Convocation? At making us a people more compassionate to our own, more capable of understanding that even Theclos can be weak, and we deserve no less from each other than we would give one of our Green World petitioners? That we are not, in truth, gods, for all our power and all our immortality and all the Green World tribes and clans that look to us as such, but we are in fact biological entities with limitations and needs, just like the Humans?”

She glared at him. “Of course I’d be interested, if it’s a thing that could be done.”

“It is a thing that can be done. It might take five hundred years, but it’s certainly a thing that could be done. But if you’re bound and determined to kill yourself now, you’ll never find out how you could do it.” Prullelleh stood again, floating just centimeters off the ground. His eye level was still below hers, even with that. “The Convocation is like a mind united, correct? When we are in session, when we are all connected to each other, we present our ideas to each other, and they are all supposed to be equal in weight, correct? Ideally?”

“I’ve never seen them be equal in weight.”

“Neither have I,” the elder said. “Those of us who play politics the best, who recruit friends and allies, who rise to high status… their ideas hold the greatest of weight. And those who agree with their ideas are drawn into their circle, sharing in their status. Those who disagree, fall in favor. There may be factions, but even factions hold a received wisdom in common, a shared worldview. And if someone falls outside that worldview, their opinions are nothing.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s exactly what I’ve come for.” He was now floating directly in front of her. When she tried to turn her head away, he followed her, floating into her field of vision again.

Finally, infuriated, Ramasyne threw her arms up. “Fine! I won’t be free of you until you tell me what you’ve come for, obviously!”

“An anadvocate,” Prullelleh said, “is a Theclos whose role within the Convocation, whose job, is to argue against whatever ideas are presented by the leaders of highest status. To act as a firebreak to prevent us from following some charismatic leader down some horrific, foolish path.”

“Then why didn’t you do something?” Ramasyne snapped. “This wasn’t horrifying enough for you?”

“There were ten of us, in the beginning,” Prullelleh said. “It’s a very difficult job. It cuts you off from the rest of the Convocation. You don’t make friends. Many of us quit and joined the mainstream of the Convocation. We tried to recruit young ones, but… over time, our role’s fallen out of favor. More and more, the Convocation wants everyone to agree. The idea is presented that we should all be in harmony, and ‘harmony’ means that we are all united in thought. Those of us who stand against that harmony, who are the grit slowing down the flywheel of ridiculous ideas… we have been rejected, taunted, looked down on. Eventually it was down to two – Vashtas and me. And you know what happened after that.”

“Vashtas was a member of your little club?”

He shrugged. “It’s one of the potential issues anadvocates face. Many of us who weren’t dedicated enough to being adversarial gave up being anadvocates. And it turns out that some of us who are dedicated to being adversarial… are in fact adversaries. It doesn’t change the importance of the work.”

“And you’re here to recruit me. For a position that was last held by the woman who betrayed my sister and got her captured and experimented on for five years.”

“Vashtas betrayed the Anadvocacy, too.” Prullelleh shook his head. “But the truth is, I had been thinking throughout your childhood that, if you should become what I expected you to be, that you might be the best possible candidate for an anadvocate that I’ve ever seen.”

“You expected my sister to get killed?” Ramasyne asked in a low, angry voice.

“No. Of course not. But I expected that when you were finally old enough to have your surgical implant, you would feel… detached from us. Most Theclos children join the Convocation when they’re ten years old, barely out of infancy. Even the late bloomers come in around fifty. You were a hundred and twenty-five before you joined the Convocation. It was never a part of you, like it was for most of us. Your link to Istanya was a part of you. The Convocation is not, and it never would have been even if you didn’t blame us for your family’s deaths.”

“…I’m part of the Convocation.”

“Of course you are, but it isn’t a part of you. If everyone in the Convocation disagreed with you, would that change your opinion on a matter?”

Ramasyne snorted. “Haven’t we just finished discussing that?” She picked up rocks from her feet with her telekinesis and flung them.

“You’re not worried about those hitting someone?” the elder asked.

“There are no Humans in this rainforest. I checked,” Ramasyne said. “And don’t change the subject, you know perfectly well that right now, everyone in the Convocation does disagree with me.”

“What if they disagreed with you about a matter that didn’t affect you personally? Would you feel uncomfortable, having an opinion that the rest of the Convocation disagrees with?”

Ramasyne laughed harshly. “It’s been the story of my life so far, why would it be any different then?”

Prullelleh grinned. “Yes, that was exactly what I thought. I never expected your sister to die, though. I expected you might come into conflict with her, as the Convocation pressured her into agreement, and that would be your only weak point. With her dead, and the Convocation responsible… you may be stronger than any anadvocate there has ever been, including myself, and I was the one who created the office two thousand years ago.”

“So.” Ramasyne finished throwing rocks and turned back to Prullelleh. “Would I have to argue against everything? What if I actually believe in the thing?”

“You choose the arguments you’ll make. You have no obligation to make any argument you don’t want. But arguing against the positions you believe in can strengthen them. If you are certain that the position you hold is strong, and you believe in the arguments for the position, you can make arguments against the position and be confident that all you will do is prove that the position is correct, because the only arguments against it are plainly weaker than the arguments for, or why would you hold that position?”

“…I’m not certain it will always work that way,” Ramasyne muttered.

“Ramasyne. This isn’t a job, like Blue Worlders have. You don’t have a superior to report to. I will try to mentor you, to the extent I can, but I chose you in the first place because I know you will not be swayed by a bad argument just because someone powerful is making it. If you aren’t moved to argue against a point, then don’t. You’re an adult now, a full member of the Convocation.”

“No one else thinks so.”

“Well, you’re barely a hundred fifty, and some of us are more than two thousand years old. But you have no guardian among the Theclos anymore. You are officially considered an adult and a full member of the Convocation regardless of how the others treat you. You would be my partner and fellow, not my employee or apprentice.”

“And is there any reason I can’t argue for positions I am personally involved in?”

“You’ll be taken less seriously than ones where you’re disinterested, but of course, you can make any argument you wish.”

“…I’ve been doing nothing but arguing against them for twenty-five years… I suppose there’s no reason not to take the position you’re trying to recruit me for.”

“I think you’ll find it will be a far better use of your gifts and resources than blowing yourself up.”

“Yeah.” She almost-smiled, wryly. “Let me get rid of this thing.”

A quick teleport to the top of Mt. Kethos – eleven miles tall, jutting out of the Green World into the stratosphere – to leave the bomb within the secure vault of confiscated Human weapons, and she was back. “Okay, Elder Pru. When do we get started?”

Prullelleh chuckled at the nickname. “I believe that perhaps you’ve already begun.”