The Fractal Prince

changed. They will be just as strong as you. And you will still be Mieli.

‘You have never spoken to me like that,’ Mieli says.

I have never needed to. But I will not watch you destroy yourself. You’ll have to do that without me.

Perhonen’s wings open, magnetic fields and q-dots like dew in a spiderweb, stretching for miles. They grab the gentle solar wind and push the ship back on course, towards the Highway, towards Earth.

Here’s what we are going to do. We are going to speak to the thief and go to Earth and go through with whatever plan the thief fed me to a tiger for and get Sydan back, so we can finally be free, all of us. Promise me you will not give up.

Shame washes over Mieli. Kuutar and Ilmatar, forgive me. ‘I promise,’ she whispers.

Good. Now please leave me alone. I need to heal. And then the ship’s presence is gone.

Mieli’s head spins. She sits still for a moment. Then she goes into the main cabin. It is bare and empty like her mind. Remnants of the battle debris and ash float around in the ship’s gentle acceleration.

Slowly, hesitantly, she starts to sing, simple songs, songs of koto, of food and drink and comfort and sauna. Slowly, skeletons of furniture start re-appearing, sketched by an invisible pen. It’s time to do some housecleaning, she thinks.

I look at my new face in the ship’s mirror wall, trying it on for size. The scars and the line of the jaw do not seem right. But the awareness of the Code is worse. It’s locked up tight in a mind compartment but I am going to have to use it again. Burnt bodies and filth and electricity. I shudder. That is what defines Sumanguru? No wonder he was upset after a few centuries inside the Box.

I close my eyes and concentrate on distracting myself from the pain with whiskey from my cabin’s tiny fabber. I could just turn off the aches, of course. But like my friend Isaac taught me a long ago on Mars, alcohol is not just about chemistry: it’s the meme, the feeling, Bacchus speaking in my head and making it all better. At least, that’s the theory. This time, the malt tastes a lot like guilt.

Nevertheless, I take a deep sip. As I drink, one of the ship’s butterfly avatars enters the cabin. I look at it. It says nothing.

‘Look, it was the only way,’ I say. ‘It had to think it had a way out. I could not edit the firmament in the Sobornost parts, it had to be the Oortian tech. I had to give it access to you to trap it, take a part of you in with me. I’m sorry.’

The butterfly says nothing. Its wings remind me of the jewel I saw in Sumanguru’s memories. The fire of the gods. Some of the Founder’s anger mixes with the emotion. Down, boy, I tell it.

‘There is a honeytrap in every con,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry it had to be you.’

‘You are not sorry,’ the ship says. ‘You are Jean le Flambeur. Why would you be sorry?’ The butterfly settles on the edge of my glass. Its white reflection is distorted by the thin pseudomatter and the golden liquid at the bottom.

‘I thought you could help Mieli, on Mars, I really did. That you could show her that she did not have to obey the pellegrini. I thought you saw there was a different side to her. You even made her sing. But in the end, you are just like her. You will become anything to get what you think you want.’

‘Easy for you to say,’ I say. ‘You are just a . . .’ I hesitate. Servant? Slave? Lover? What is the ship to Mieli, really? In the end, I have no idea. ‘Sorry,’ I mutter.

‘You seem to be fond of that word today.’

‘I’m fond of my skin,’ I say. ‘I don’t deny that. And I’m not going back to the Prison, or whatever hell the cop thing had in store for me. At least I’ve dealt with the pellegrini before. Her I can handle.’ I hold my tongue. The goddess is always listening, no doubt. But the ship does not seem to be worried about that.

‘Oh yes?’ the butterfly says. ‘Is that why you are letting her manipulate you into trying the impossible?’

‘You don’t understand the stakes here, ship. If the chen has a Spike artefact that can do what I think it can —’

‘I understand the stakes that matter to me,’ Perhonen says. ‘Do you?’

It is surprisingly difficult to win a staring contest with a butterfly, even when you are wearing the face of the greatest warlord in the Solar System. So in the end, I look away.

‘I need to be free,’ I say. ‘So I can try again. I had something on Mars, and I threw it away. I almost think I got caught on purpose, can you believe that? The pellegrini showed me what I did, last time. A lot of things came back with it, about her, about Earth, about what she is after.’ I rub the bridge of my nose. The scar tissue is rough and alien.

‘You see, I had a plan, a perfect plan – but I did not use it. Instead, I went right up against the chen. To see if I could take him.’ I shake the glass and the butterfly alights. I pour myself more whiskey. ‘So it’s not about Jean le Flambeur. It’s about getting rid of him.’

‘This plan of yours,’ the ship says, slowly. ‘Will it work?’

‘It will. Except that after what happened, I’m not sure Mieli will ever go along with it.’

‘Let’s hear it.’

So I tell her the story of the warmind and the Kaminari jewel. I tell her about the insurance heavens and the city of Sirr and the Aun and the body thieves. Not everything, of course, but enough to convince her that it will work. And that it will be me doing the heavy lifting, this time. The butterfly listens. I wonder if somewhere inside my head or far away, the pellegrini is laughing.

‘You are right,’ Perhonen says, finally. ‘Mieli will never do it. She’ll die first.’

With a force of will, I turn my face back into my own. ‘So, what are we going to do?’ I place the glass carefully in the air, like a chess piece. It’s your move.

‘What you do best,’ the ship says. ‘We are going to lie to her.’

12 TAWADDUD AND THE QARIN

The Story of Tawaddud and the Axolotl

The girl who loved only monsters walked alone through the narrow streets of the City of the Dead.

The ghuls looked at her with empty eyes, huddled around the warmth of the server tombs.

It was instinct that had led her to this place, more than anything: looking for a place where the Repentants or Veyraz would not find her. She could pretend to be a ghul, if anyone came. She would be safe here, amongst the dead.

A ghul started following her. She kept walking.

Duny had come back from the entwiner a different person, a jinn jar around her neck, two beings in one. The girl could not go to her. She did not know her anymore.

And Father—

The ghul grabbed her arm. He was tall, shrivelled, with a filthy matted beard, but his grip was strong.

‘I SHOT THE OUTLAW ANGEL IN THE DAWN,’ he screamed. ‘CURSE YOU, MARION, IT SAID, BURNING—’ He shouted directly at her face, voice monotonous, the story coming out with the terrible smell of rotting teeth. She wrenched away from his grip and ran.

She did not get far. More ghuls came out from the tombs, blinking against the daylight, whispering their own stories, a hollow chorus. Before she could flee, they were all around her, touching, pressing against her, a muttering mass of filthy humanity. She covered her ears against the stories but they tore her hands away—

A cold wind came, tearing at her hair and face, something sharp in it, like sand. It had a voice.

‘This . . . one . . . is . . . mine,’ it said.

The ghul crowd moved as one, carrying her with it. They pressed her against one of the tombs. Her head