Feast of the chosen, p.12
Feast of the Chosen, page 12
“You won’t be a monster,” Nari added her certainty.
“Neither of you knows that,” Angae growled. “By the gods, I don’t know that about myself! Sure, I’ve had power to throw around. But what am I? If these revelations have shown me nothing else, it is to realize how blind I’ve been. Sitting here believing everything I’ve been told. I’m a weapon. A sword. When I’m here with you, I’ve been slid home into my sheath until they need to draw me again. What about any of that suggests I could rule our country?”
“There are experts and advisors for such things!” Min-seo argued back. “Not even the Guide of the Devoted has the hubris to think that just because she wears the hairpin that day, she automatically knows how to run the kitchens or how to re-design water sanitization systems or… any of it! We lean on the others around us to help. Being a leader is about being the heart and soul from which others base their aspirations. You could do that!”
He shook his head, almost violently. “You believe in me. You know me better than… better than anyone in the world. But what about the rest of these people? Think about it, both of you. What am I to them? What was I to you before you came here?”
“A symbol,” Nari insisted. “A great and powerful symbol!”
“Right! But whose symbol? You told me that you the only way that I could break free of my disillusion was to have 1,000 women commit themselves to me. Not some of them. You waited until you were sure all of those here would tell me the same thing. That I’m lost. If even one dissented and claimed the Daewang was the powerful, divine ruler that he claims, then your whole effort might have failed. I wouldn’t know which was illusion and which was reality.” He grasped one of the bed posters, restraining himself from crushing it in his frustration. “I’m the Daewang’s symbol. If we tear him down, then I will be torn down. I don’t fear for myself. Even if the people hated me despite saving them, what harm could they do to me? My reputation may not survive this.”
“You’ll have acted against him. People will respect that!” Min-seo argued.
“But not everyone!” Angae growled, “That’s the point. They still won’t have a choice. How many military coups have there been in the world? We’ve only been allowed to read about a few. Probably because the Daewang didn’t want to give anyone ideas.” He smirked, mocking his own sparse knowledge. “I used to think I was learned. Now I know the King has probably left massive holes in my education. He only told me about military coups that failed, probably to ensure it always looked like a hopeless endeavor.” He gave a mournful, dark laugh, then went on, “But every time, those coups were done by warlords who thought their will should supersede the will of the one in charge. They wanted privilege and the supplication of the people for themselves. How is that any better? That is how the people will see me. As a Chosen who has decided he wants more than 1,000 women to worship him. That I want the whole country for myself, so I took it. How can they trust me?”
Nari looked crestfallen. “We could speak or you! Please, you can’t turn away from this. You can’t let that monster continue his reign!”
Min-seo added more calmly, “You’re the only one with the power to challenge him. If there was another option, it might have been tried. But there is nothing, or rather no one else. If he was to suddenly die by assassination, he would be replaced by one of his advisors. Song Jun being in charge would be perhaps even worse. That wasp of a man Si-woo… he would be even more cruel! Only you can do this, Angae. You’re the only one they can’t stop. The only one they can’t ignore. It is wrong that your violent force must be the answer, but it is! You can keep them in line!”
Her words snared his spiraling thoughts. Then, an idea expanded in his mind with the speed of an explosion. “I’m a sword.”
Nari started to object, “You’re not just –”
“– I’m a sword!” Angae insisted again, not giving her the chance to salve his ego again. “But perhaps a sword is the answer.”
“What do you mean?” Min-seo wondered, though a trace of hope lit upon her face. Any hope that he would not turn away and ignore the people’s needs.
Angae said, “If I am a sword, then perhaps I need to be wielded by someone else.” He met their eyes. “I don’t know the answer. Should a King rule? Should it be a leader selected as they do in the West, with elections? All systems can be corrupted. The Daewang tells me that the Western nations are rife with pollution in their government, where no one knows how decisions are made because of money and the exchange of favors. But now I suspect he was not telling me the whole truth there either. There must be power in having the people choose who leads them.”
He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath. Then, he re-established his gaze with his two Devoted. “I don’t know which is right. That means the burden has to fall to you. My Devoted.”
Min-seo’s mouth gaped open. “To us? You can’t be serious! I’m a musician. If you claim not to have the skills to rule a country, how am I any better suited?”
Angae clarified, “Not to rule.” He paused, then laughed at himself again. “There I go already. See? Already I think I can make decrees. See how poor a leader I would be?” He sighed, then started again, “Perhaps not to rule. Maybe the best choice is for the Devoted to do precisely that. I don’t know.” He shrugged. “What I meant to say is that you and the others should be the ones who decide Yeoseo’s future.”
“What reason would the people have to trust us? To think we could help them?” Nari asked.
“You were the architects of this plan. If I challenge the Daewang, you will be the ones who caused his downfall. I will be your sword.” Angae felt himself growing used to the idea as he spoke. Liking it. Thinking it felt right.
“There must be others out there,” Nari suggested. “Those who can research the best methods of ruling and decide how to be governed.”
“The Devoted have something they do not,” Angae countered.
Both women questioned him silently.
Angae raised a subdued chuckle, the conversation too momentous for outright laughter. Still, he had to admit there was a certain strange symmetry to what he was thinking. He had always appreciated symmetry. “My trust. If I must be wielded, then it must be by someone I trust. Because when I am finished, I will be handing someone a nation. I will back them against any challengers. I won’t do that with anyone who might be selfish in pursuing their own designs. I can’t do that for a stranger.”
Min-seo shook her head, “We couldn’t choose ourselves. For the same reason you couldn’t choose yourself. There would be those who thought we manipulated you to gain power.”
Seeing her point easily, Angae nodded. “I agree. Those who are selected must arise from a total absence of bias.”
“That’s impossible!” Nari exclaimed. “If we ignore our good sense in who we pick, then they might be terrible. It can’t be random.”
Min-seo was awakening to a few new realities even as she spoke, “Which is… which is why we… we can’t pick for the people. We need to design a system by which they are chosen.”
Angae knew she had it right. “Yes. You craft the way we will pick our leaders. And I will protect your efforts. I can be an interim leader. It will be necessary to bend the Secretaries and Advisors to a new will. To force them to keep the nation whole and fed until the new regime takes over. That is my burden. I may be hated. People may call me a liar, assuming I will never give up the power. But I will surrender it, as soon as my Devoted can arrange the means of transfer. That… will be your burden.” He wasn’t smiling despite the mildly playful symmetry of his own words. Flatly serious, he said, “That’s the cost for this. The price for playing the games you have. There will be people who threaten you. Hate you even. No system is perfect. You will solve some things, but you will create different problems. And the problems you create may not be solved in the balance of your lives. You begged me to finish this. But… it will be you who start something that will only be finished if you get the system right.”
He took a long breath, hating the idea of casting doom onto the women who cared about him so deeply. But it couldn’t be avoided. “Promise me that. Promise me you will do this right. No matter what happens, no matter the cost… promise me, and I will do what is necessary.”
Min-seo glanced to Nari, sharing a silent bond. At last, Nari turned back to him and nodded. “We swear. We cannot speak for the whole of your Devoted. There may be those who don’t want the responsibility. Those who will want nothing more than to lead simple, uncomplicated lives. But we will never falter. There are dozens of us that we know will stand with us in this.”
Angae nodded. It was enough for him. He stayed away from thinking on the Devoted who might wish for a simpler life. In truth, he knew there might be those among the 1,000 who… despite giving themselves to him… might now wish to leave his side and return to their families. He couldn’t imagine living without any of them. However, their whole plan was about having a choice. Knowing now that the term volunteer might not have been an utterly pure representation, he would not force any of them to remain.
But that was a problem for tomorrow.
Today… his greatest concern was dying and not fulfilling this promise he had just made.
Chapter 6
His Devoted had recently dedicated their lives to Angae in one way or another. In fact, their commitment to him ran deeper than simply knowing his desires and keeping them well satisfied. He understood that now. Their bond with him had been for their survival, as well as the path to freedom.
He felt little surprise now that both Min-seo and Nari were able to read the concern on his face and recognize it as something they didn’t often see in him: apprehension… verging on fear.
Min-seo asked, “There’s more, isn’t there?”
Angae returned a grave nod. “We speak of this as if it is already accomplished. Done in the blink of an eye. But that isn’t so.” He frowned deeply, rehearsing how to tell them another of his concerns, Speaking of secrets… I have my own. He wrestled with the words. Immediately, he chastised himself for his hesitation. These are your Devoted. They have just put their lives in your hands! The least you can do is put yours in theirs.
The admission still came slowly, his mouth was filled with dry cotton, fighting through every word. “The Daewang… knows… my weakness.”
“Weakness?” Nari asked.
Searching for a way to explain, Angae said, “The magic of the stones of Heaven’s Fall aren’t perfect. Or perhaps… whatever god that created them intended for there to be a key to controlling the Chosen.” He shrugged. “The reason hardly matters. From the briefings I have been given, most of the Chosen we know about have been documented as having some weakness. For the Gifted, who are little more than augmented humans, their vulnerabilities are not much different than a typical human’s. But for the Chosen… and especially the greatest of us… there are ways to harm us that an average person can manage if granted the right technology.” He gestured beyond the manse. “The Daewang knows mine.”
“Wh-what… what is it?” Min-seo asked, staggered by the enormity of that thought. To know their invincible sword on which they had bet their lives was in fact breakable.
In answer, Angae raised his left hand. The hand on which his ring finger was missing. “I won’t insult you by asking if you ever noticed this.”
Nari smiled softly. “We assumed it was simply a birth defect. It occurred to us to wonder why you don’t simply reform it. Can’t you do it?”
Angae nodded. “Possible, though it would cost me. If I lose pieces of myself, I can’t regenerate the loss mass. I can separate into two clouds if I wanted, though they need to be within a certain distance. I have never lost more than a few molecules of myself when experimenting like that.”
He shook his head, “But this was no birth defect. And I haven’t reformed it at the cost of losing mass elsewhere on my body. I wanted the reminder. I didn’t want to forget that I’m not all-powerful. I may not age, but I’m not immortal. I’m not a god.” He said it with almost religious conviction.
Sensing who it was that had made him think that, Min-seo spoke equally firmly, “Neither is the Daewang!”
Favoring her with a smile that acknowledged what she was trying to do, he said, “I do not know that. But if he is of divine blood, I will not let a god of tricks rule this land. Even gods can be cast down.” He drew a deep breath. “But even if he is not a god, that does not mean he is without power. He is too intelligent to leave himself unguarded or vulnerable. I belonged to him longer than you have all belonged to me.”
He looked at his missing finger again. “When I was ten, he took me into a hidden room. He told me I was to be instructed in my weakness for my own good. To show me so that I might avoid it.”
Memories flooded back to him. Memories he preferred to leave buried. “Even then, I knew there was another layer of meaning. He was doing more than confirming that he knew. He was demonstrating he had the means to destroy me if I failed him.”
His right forefinger pointed, scribing the outline of where his left ring finger once was. “They placed my hand over a sluice grate in the top of a table and splayed my fingers apart. Then they ran liquid nitrogen over this one finger. The liquid kept coming. I’d never felt such pain. I couldn’t change the finger anymore. I couldn’t even move it, much less reshape it.” His right hand closed into a fist. “They took a hammer and smashed it into pieces. The pieces fell through the grate and into the pool of nitrogen below. He took a piece of me. I can never get it back.” A shiver ran through him, as if the cold of that liquid was so strong that it could chill his spine right through the years between that time and this.
Nari objected, “How can they stop you in that way? It isn’t like you will stop and wait for them to drench you in a super-cold liquid! Even if they tried to blast you with it, your speed and strength could evade any such trap.”
He nodded. “Difficult for them, but not impossible. Believe me, I was fortunate to have inherited a weakness such as this. However difficult it must have been for them, they discovered a way. They have had years to prepare.”
He held up one finger. “First, there is the matter of speed. It is a power I do not have when near the Daewang.”
“What? Why not?” demanded Nari.
“I do not know. Nor could I ever ask. Inquiring how he can leech one of my powers away would have been considered treasonous. But whenever I am near him, I cannot move as quickly. It is like the air thickens around me.”
He held up a second finger. “They knew they would educate me and create a weapon out of me. It is a foolish thing to develop a weapon that you can’t control. As I have said, Kan Yeong-su is not a fool. Ambitious. But not reckless.”
“They’ve developed a weapon against you using their technology?” Min-seo guessed.
“Indeed, they have. I’ve seen it function on occasion. It is one of a thousand small threats the Daewang arranges, cloaked as displays of fun. Just to be sure I don’t forget his first lesson, nor require it to be repeated. He has taken me to watch his personal guard practicing. He introduces them with pride. I shake their hands and congratulate them on their skill. But the whole time, I know what I am being shown. Those in the guard know what the weapons are for. That they might be called upon to fire those weapons at me.” He tried to describe them, “They have bullets of a sort. Somewhat larger in terms of caliber and built to house the explosive within. I do not know how long they stay viable, since the chill interior would inevitably warm up. But they have spent years perfecting the technology, starting on the day they realized what my weakness was.”
He held his hands in the shape of a sphere and mimed it exploding. “When the bullets sense they have made contact, they burst open, spraying about thirty centimeters in all directions. I honestly don’t know if they use liquid nitrogen or some other super-cooled liquid with similar properties. Whatever it is, it freezes anything around it. Although the blast radius is small, if two or three impact the same spot, the power of it amplifies. I’ve never seen the specifications. Again, not the sort of thing I could safely ask questions about. My curiosity would only make me look like I was trying to evade it.”
He shrugged. “One would be enough to freeze a part of me to where I can’t recover. Two? They would certainly shatter that piece and I would lose a part of myself. They have the means to kill me. Especially if I am where my superior speed is slowed and prevents me from dodging bullets.”
Nari said, “But… the cold… you’ve been cold before!”
“Of course.”
“Cold is just a matter of scale!” she objected. “What do you do when you plunge into freezing waters?”
He chuckled. “I appreciate your faith, but even the cold ocean that would kill a normal person in minutes is still only hovering around freezing. I could stand on the middle of the Antarctic continental shelf encased in ice, and still I would be able to recover where a human might die of hypothermia. But this is cold of a different magnitude. Atoms begin to slow. They call it a weakness for a reason. I don’t have a defense against it.”
Nari scowled, “Are you sure?”
“I know what I saw. Again, I appreciate your faith, but I didn’t imagine it. I didn’t imagine being helpless.” He held up his hand, showing her again the space where his shattered finger had once been.
Min-seo asked, “Can’t you… I don’t know, evaporate the water in their bodies or something?”
Angae grimaced at the ugly thought, impressed that his Devoted could come up with so cunning if not horrifying idea. He figured she would have made for a daunting opponent if she had powers. She would have made the most of her abilities, to be sure. He replied, “It can be done. But it takes time and extreme effort. Water locked inside things is difficult to remove, especially when bonded like that. Life energy makes it even harder. I know my own being. That’s why I can alter myself so easily. But manipulating another person against their will is difficult. I would need time and concentration, and that would give them all the time they needed to slay me. An attack like that would be my last resort.” He grew a grim smile.
