Only Villains Do That

2.20 In Which the Dark Lord Confronts the Face of Evil

It was not one of the best trips back to North Watch, but definitely wasnt the longest or most difficult; that honor still went to the previous one, when Id been escorting most of the population of Cat Alley, along with their various hangers-on. This group was smaller, and while the kids slowed us considerably, the ladies were experienced wilderness survivalists and did a great deal to compensate. We didnt rush, taking frequent breaks and pausing overnight to let the children get enough sleep, and in the end made it in a day and a half.

As it turned out, some of the young noblewomen were quite good with children, keeping them engaged in conversation and playing games as we walked, once we were far enough from civilization for that to be safe. Some were more aloof, which I well understood; kids can be stressful if you dont know how to handle them. I sure as hell didnt, so I just talked to them like I would to an adult except less aggressively than I talked to most adults. Which, quite accidentally, seemed to work very well. They responded positively to it, anyway. As we gained some distance from Gwyllthean, the kids started lightening up noticeably. Walking in nature can do that for a person, especially if theyre not used to it. Even if the nature was Ephemeral seashell-based alien nonsense.

That was only my own perception, anyway. To them, it was just nature.

By far the worst part was the looming specter of Lady Gray, whom we all expected to jump out of every shadow. She never made an appearance, though. Not in the Gutters, and at no point during our journey back. This, needless to say, was stressful. Lady Gray was doubly unpredictable, both because she was a more adept maneuverer than I at the best of times, and because she appeared to have gone entirely off her rocker. She justkilled five children to fuck with me, and then vanished.

Undoubtedly some of that had to do with the immense amount of pressure Rhydion had laid down on her while I was seeing to the dead. Still. I hated not knowing where someone like that was, or what she was up to.

Were almost there, I said. Should see it within the hour, maybe less.

Less, I think, Aster added. Were closer than that.

Ill take your word for it, every patch of this hell forest looks the same as every other to me.

Nazralind, who had chosen that moment to ride up to the front of the column with us, rolled her eyes but said nothing. Aenit, the other person in the lead with me, just nodded, eyes ahead. She didnt really talk unless she had something specific to say that she judged worth the effort.

I had wondered, initially, why Aenit hadnt been among the kids Gilder considered trustworthy to recruit, and whether I might be making a mistake by relying on her, but since then Id figured it out. He probably just hadnt known her that well. She was generally not interested in being known, and hadnt been very sociable even with the other Rats whod come with us. Aenit had latched onto me as a source ofI dunno, safety, I guess? She still didnt say much, but watched and listened and kept close by. Not unlike Benit, but more intense.

Biribo, howre you doing? I asked.

No signs, boss. Ill letcha know immediately if something comes up, never fear.

Yeah, I assumed you would, I said. I meant, how are you doing? Need to take a break?

Biribo, whod been sitting on my shoulder for the whole trip rather than hovering around as usual, looked up at me in plain surprise. So did Aster.

Uh Thanks, boss, but its okay. This isnt stressful or anything, just takes concentration.

Okay, I nodded. Honestly, at this point if you havent spotted any signs, its probably moot. Either shes not out there, or shes too good for us to catch.

Yeah His wings buzzed once and then fell still. I know. Makes me feel better to keep watch, though.

Sure, thats fine. Just saying, you have permission to let up if you want.

Thanks, boss.

Wed been brainstorming a way to penetrate Lady Grays stealth; his familiar senses didnt beat that daggers power by default, but wed come up with something that became feasible once we were inside the khora forest. Biribo could sense people and other lifeforms, and could also detect the physical shape of his surroundings, the skill that enabled him to find hidden compartments. So hed spent the trip actively concentrating on our surroundings, alert for any signs of the underbrush or ground being disturbed in a way that seemed like a humans presence could have caused it, with no apparent human present.

I wasnt pinning all my hopes on this, and wouldnt have even if he hadnt warned me that this was a gambit and far from foolproof. The sheer amount of data he was processing was more than a human brain could handle even if a human had the necessary senses. We didnt, though, and he did; a familiar was apparently a sort of conduit for raw information, so it stood to reason his means of cognition was different. Still, the forest was just too complex for this to work perfectly. Biribo had spotted no consistent patterns that looked like a person tailing us, but there had been false alarms at a rate of at least one per hour as things shifted from wind, water, erosion, or who knew what else.

Hed also identified people who held still as we passed. Not far from the city he reported a small bandit gang whose position I asked him to remember for later. They had apparently taken one look at the cloaked women and gwynneks and decided they wanted none of this. Gwynneks, I was informed, differed from horses in that they didnt spook easily and would go fiercely on the attack if their riders were assaulted. Looking at those claws and huge murder beaks, I wouldnt have wanted to mix it up with that, either. Farther into the forest, Biribo twice reported small catfolk hunting parties which held still as we passed, clearly considering us a danger. We never caught a glimpse of them.

And I still couldnt be absolutely sure that Lady Gray wasnt following us home. We kept to a strict guard protocol: no fewer than four adults on watch at all times, positioned in each others view and far enough apart that anybody stabbing one wouldnt be able to reach a second before they raised an alarm.

But nothing happened. The anticipation was a constant, oppressive stress.

Do you think the Viryans describe themselves as Evil? Aster asked suddenly, causing the rest of us to turn and stare at her. She shrugged, gazing ahead with a pensive expression. Biribos talked like that a few times. I know everybody I grew up around equated Viryans with evil, but Well, it really resonated with me, Lord Seiji, that speech you made the first time we met. About why people end up as bandits, how a lot of hate is directed at other victims of a bad system to keep people turned against each other instead of the system itself. Honestly, that makes more sense to me than the idea of people justjust doing wrong. The more I think about it, the more it seems like everybodys horrible behavior has some reason behind it, that theyre short-sighted and do things because they dont consider consequences or other people, not because theyre evil.

That sounds like what Rhydion was talking about, Nazralind observed.

Aster shrugged again. Yeah, well, he made a lot of sense.

Virya called herself the Goddess of Evil right to my face, I said. Of course, Virya is definitely crazy and probably a liar, so take that for whatever its worth.

Some Viryans embrace Evil as a label, said Biribo. Others reject the entire concept as meaningless sophistry. They all have differing opinions of what it even means.

What do you think evil is, Lord Seiji? Nazralind asked.

I could sense a lot more eyes and ears trained on me than just the few of us here chatting at the head of the column.

Evil is whatever its easiest not to understand, I declared. People always want to categorize things, and people tend to reject out-groups as some amorphous other that can then be despised and not really considered people. And obviously thats super useful to whoevers in charge. Just keep your subjects angry at someone you can call Evil, someone they wont know any better about or try to comprehend, and you can keep them from turning on you no matter how badly you deserve it. Just look at Fflyr Dlemathlys and whats evil here, which is practically everything because it takes a lot of misdirected anger to keep this shitshow of a country from devouring its rulers. Goblins, whores, women in general, lowborn in general, Viryans Not foreigners, which is extremely telling. Foreigners are an easy and common target for rulers using this trickexcept in a country thats heavily dependent on foreign trade, and bordered by a large militaristic power that might not appreciate that kind of rhetoric. I channeled a huge weight of contempt into one expressive snort. I tend to agree with those Viryans Biribo was talking about. Evil is a made-up concept. Its politically useful, but its not a real thing.

I was just thinking, Aster said quietly, about thethe contrast. You talked before about, you know, banditry and people falling through the cracks of a failed society. But when you talked to that last bandit gang we took over, it was It was all about the highborn being gratuitously vile for no reason. Just, evil for the sake of evil.

Like Lady Gray, Aenit said suddenly. I reached down to pat her head.

Or like Archlord Caludon, I added. No offense, Naz. The Captain told me about theseige.

Youre not gonna offend me, Nazralind said, grimacing. Newneh, ever sensitive to her riders mood, made a low trilling noise deep in her throat and fluffed her neck feathers slightly. Trust me, I lived in the palace with them. Politics is politics, but Uncle Caludon and Aunt Nazfryn are completely insane. Nobodys ever going to be safe anywhere they have influence.

Nazfryn? I grinned up at her. Were you named for her, by any chance?

Can we not dredge that up? she asked plaintively.

Aster cleared her throat loudly to steer the conversation back on track. I just wonder, Lord Seiji Which do you think it is?

Which? Ah, you think theres some contradiction there?

Wellisnt there? Theyre sort of opposite interpretations, arent they?

I would say, ratherdifferent manifestations of the same basic problem.

I paused, drawing in a breath and letting it out slowly as I considered my next words. Nazralind and Aster were both watching me; Aenit was looking ahead and minding her feet on the broken path, but I could practically feel the pressure of her attention. And that of the riders and orphans behind me, not to mention Goose, Lamm, and Twigs.

Let me take you back in time, I said finally. Back before the dawn of history, all the way back when humanity first began to be recognizably human. Before writing, before metal, before stoneworking. When our ancestors were only a few centuries separated from the animals from which theyd evolved. They were naked and hairy, their language little more than patterns of grunts; theyd had simple bone tools for a few generations, and fire for even fewer. There were no cities, no farms, and definitely no isekai offshoots like elves or goblins or animal people. Just the original humans, barely separated from the beasts.

Some of the creation accounts say elves came first, Nazralind said, arching an eyebrow.

Naz, Im sorry to have to tell you this, but humanity developed on the world Im from. We have records of our evolution from lesser life forms; we know how it happened, where it happened, and how long it took. And on Earth, there are no elves. Elves are a myth there, and those myths are undoubtedly the template the goddesses used to create them from human stock when they arrived on Ephemera, along with probably every other sapient race here. Fflyr highborn are recognized by having elven blood, right? Then if humans and elves can interbreed, they are by definition the same species. A species which is from Earth, not Ephemera, whose origins are understood by science, not creation stories.

Oof. Despite that, she grinned; I got the feeling Nazralind was hard to ruffle and not very invested in her cultures beliefs, which made sense considering her backstory. That kind of talk would get you in a lot of trouble among the movers and shakers in Dlemathlys.

I intend to do a lot worse to them than hurt their feelings, trust me. Now where was I? Ah, yes, the first people sitting around the first campfires. Picture two of them: primitive, naked hunters armed only with pieces of bone, grunting barely intelligible proto-words at each other as they relax over dinner after a long day. Lets call them Burp and Fart.

That brought me a rash of giggles from my audience, or at least one particular segment. I turned to wink over my shoulder at the kids. Ah, toilet humor, the foolproof crowd-pleaserso long as your crowd is under ten years old. The ladies looked significantly less impressed, but that was fine. It wasnt like I was trying to date any of them.

Now, Burp has had a less successful day of hunting, so hes hungry. He reaches over and grabs a handful of Farts dinner. So, to dissuade Burp from such pilfering, Fart clonks him over the head with a bone club.

By that point several of the kids were cackling in pure glee. I didnt think it was all that funny, but damn it was good to hear them laugh after what wed all been through just the day before. I paused to let the juvenile mirth subside before ruining the fun.

And that is all of human history ever since. Somebody wants something, they try to take it, and whoever they try to take it from hits them back. That can play out in an infinite number of ways, all of which boil down to who can hit harder, but that basic story is the only story.

Wow, youre in fine form today, Aster commented. Grim and reductive.

Thats one of those criticisms people make when they dont like what Im saying but cant prove me wrong.

She gave me a vintage Aster Look but said nothing, which I took for a concession.

Thats the pattern, though, like it or not, I said more softly. Burp is hungry, so he steals some meat. Fart doesnt want to share, so he clubs Burp. The rest is justscaling, and context. Burp is being pressured by a dark goddess to conquer a country, so he liberates a bunch of women and causes a great big inconvenience for Farts criminal empire. Fart doesnt like that, so she uses her magic dagger to murder five children and leave them where Burp will find them.

And then Burp nails a man to a wall, said Goose from behind me.

Youll never catch me claiming to be anything more than the same pile of shambling meat as everyone else, I said curtly. Its the same with the highborn. Their actions are sadistic at the expense of profitability, but for the same reason. Everything about the system that supports them depends on the lie that theyre inherently better than the people they rule over. A different, more elevated category of being. Which they obviously arent, and even worse, on some level they know that. The mental circuits that recognize other people are honed by billions of years of evolution and too deeply embedded in the mind to be fully excised by mere ideology. The highborn oppress and persecute and slaughter the lowborn, not only to keep them in their place, but because theyre flailing against the enemy they can never defeat: their own buried self-awareness. The truth that they arent better or even

meaningfully different. Same piles of shambling meat; were all just Burp and Fart around the campfire. People who are deeply invested in believing otherwise are at war with reality itself. No wonder they flail around and spread as much misery and suffering as they possibly can. Theyve driven themselves completely insane.

I drew in a breath and let it out slowly, tilting my head back to watch the khora fronds passing by overhead.

People become more sophisticated. They do not become better.

I thinkyoure wrong, Nazralind said slowly. Ornot wrong, exactly, but seeing only half the picture. The thing ispeople do get better. Maybe not in the deep animal recesses of our brains, but we have evolved morally. Thats what the concept of morality is. Just like weve developed knowledge and technology to make life easier, weve developed philosophy, science, law, justice. Just like we have craftsmen and specialists because the trades are too complex for everyone to know how to do everything, we have priests, scholars, and judges. People do want to be better, Lord Seiji. I believe they will, if given the opportunity. Isnt that what all of society is about? Surely thats the entire point of it.

Yeah? I shrugged. Look around you at the world and let me know how you think thats going.

Fflyr Dlemathlys is a wreck of a country, she said frankly. I dont think its fair to judge the potential of all thinking people everywhere by one really bad example. Dount is impoverished and violent, and also Gwyllthean lacks a university and even a proper sewer system. Now that youve pointed it out, I suspect all these things are connected.

How do you make people better, Nazralind? I asked. Im not trying to be glib, Im genuinely interested in ideas. In theory, Im supposed to end up ruling a lot of people, and I want them to have the best lives they can. I cant see any point in ruling any other way. Its a big problem and I have no fucking clue how to solve it.

She winced. Im a Fflyr Highlady, Lord Seiji. If anybody who taught me knew anything about proper governance, I bet none of us would be here.

A university and a sewer system would be nice, said Aster. Though abolishing indenture and the caste system would be better starting points.

Dark Lord Yomiko did that, yknow, Biribo said suddenly. When these islands were under the control of the Savindar Empire, light elves used to be slaves by definition, and the same elf-blooded humans who are now highborn were automatically second-class citizens.

Well, everybody knows that, but hold up, said Nazralind. The Dark Lord did that?

Yeah, I bet the Sanorites dont mention that part, he said, flicking out his tongue at her. Funny thing is they could and it wouldnt cast her in a much better light. Yomiko found slavery personally objectionable and ordered it to cease. Nobody dared defy anything she commanded because her soldiers were fanatically loyal to her and got very rough with anybody who disobeyed the Dark Lord. So, the elves were freed, which barely did them any favors. Yomiko was Well, she was an incredibly powerful fighter, and a gifted general, but pretty clueless about civilian governance. She was summoned right into the heart of Savindar, was immediately recognized and propped up by the Empire, and was accustomed to having its bureaucratic mechanisms execute her will.

That sounds pretty fucking nice, I grumbled. Thanks, Virya.

Yeah, well, it raised problems when she ordered the empire of haughty dark elves to do stuff they didnt want to do, like free the light elf slaves in the Fflyr Isles. They complied to the letter, and so the light elves and their partially-human relatives werefreed. Turned out into the wilderness with only the clothes they were wearing, if they were lucky. They turned to banditry to survive, because what the hell else were they gonna do? Which of course was what the dark elves wanted.

Nazralind grimaced. Right. Even if youre not allowed to persecute elves for being elves, you can do pretty much whatever you want to bandits. But then came Haras Sin.

Whose what? I demanded.

Satoshi Hara was the Hero at that time, Naz said, taking over the narrative. He had the backing of the Lancor Empire. Really, that whole Dark Crusade ended up being a proxy war between Savindar and Lancor, with each propping up a Champion. Lord Hara destroyed the landbridge that North Watch was supposed to be guardingthe only connection between these islands and Savindar. The only other one is the remaining northern landbridge from Dount, but thats a long way around and more importantly is blocked off by Godspire, which does not allow armies to pass through its territory.

Why is that called Haras Sin, then? I asked. By you lot, I mean. Sounds like he won the war for you.

Destroying a landbridge is the Great Sin, Aster said gravely. It irrevocably divides up the world, disrupting trade and travel at best, and carving nations apart in many cases. Its the most severely punished crime on Ephemera. In any country.

Hara got away with it, added Naz, because he was the Hero, because he had the unconditional support of Lancorand even so, only because they won. Lancor lost a lot of diplomatic credibility over that, which is one of the reasons Dlemathlys ended up an independent state instead of an Imperial province. I bet Hara was also in hot water with the Imperial government and the Radiant Temple, but those are more details that the history I learned didnt cover.

Oh, you can bet there was trouble, Biribo agreed. Exactly the kind that gets swept under the rug.

Nazralind nodded. So, Shylverrael was cut off and the remaining dark elves and survivors of Yomikos armies retreated there. Thats the reason we have naga and harpies on this island. Shylverrael itself is incredibly defensible; attempts to attack it have always been shrugged off with almost no effect. With no reinforcements coming from Savindar and Lancoral forces pushing north, the last Viryans went on the defensive. The Fflyr bandits became rebels, and eventually the Clans we have know.

Exiles and bandits, I mused. Rebels and conquerors.

And now it comes full circle, Aster agreed, nodding.

History really is a wheel, said Nazralind.

And somehow, I added, nobody ever fucking learns that this is what happens when you oppress people. Can you imagine how it would have gone down if the dark elves hadnt been shitty to the light elves in the first place? Lancor would have found no sympathetic foothold here and this might still be Savindar territory.

Aster gave me a sidelong look. So youre saying that cruelty and brutality are counterproductive?

I found, to my immense displeasure, that I didnt have a ready answer to that.

Hey, boss, said Biribo, rescuing me, while were speaking of Lancor and Savindar and Shylverrael and the last Dark Crusade, I think I got an answer to the question you asked me.

The? Biribo, I ask you hundreds of questions a day, thats what youre here for.

I meant the one I couldnt easily answer. You asked me about spells or artifacts or anything that could counter Lady Grays dagger, remember?

Aha! Yes, go on.

So, I do know of one. An artifact. Its a bowit conjures its own arrows when the string is drawn, fires with unerring accuracy even at targets in motion, and its arrows are even empowered to pierce artifact armor. Thats really rare, boss; artifacts that specifically counter the defense of other artifacts are highly unusual. Normally, duels between Blessed with Might are puzzle fights where everybody tries to figure out how their special abilities can be cleverly applied to counter the other guys. Straight up fuck your armor, get shot is a real game-changer.

ButLady Gray doesnt have armor, Aster protested. Or at least, thats not the trouble were having with her.

Yeah, Biribo said patiently, if there was a straightforward counter to that dagger specifically itdve been the first thing I mentioned. I was just thinking, the thing has anti-artifact properties, and unerring aim. That doesnt directly apply to shooting an invisible target, butif we get clever, it could possibly be made to.

I see what youre getting at, I said, frowning. That didnt sound like a very applicable match-up to me, but hed told me up front there werent going to be any immediately accessible options. Wait, let me guess. You were prompted to bring this up by that conversation about history The dark elves have this bow, dont they.

Biribo lifted off my shoulder to buzz alongside me, flicking his tongue out. Yeah. It was one of the treasures of Savindar they assigned here when they set out to colonize Dlemathlys. The Empire was fully invested in that; they even bought a miracle from Virya to establish Shylverrael as the capital of their new client state.

Wait, Shylverrael is a miracle-built city? Aster demanded.

Oh, yeah, Nazralind answered with a grin. Im not surprised you havent heard; thats exactly the kind of thing the Clans dont want spread among the lowborn. Shylverrael isnt just impossible to conquer, at least for any armed force Dlemathlys has ever cobbled together. It is easily the most beautiful and functional city in this country. Makes Fflyrdylle look like a cluster of hovels, let alone Gwyllthean. Supposedly its every bit as glorious as Lannitar itself. The Clans would like everybody to forget it exists, especially since the dark elves there havent made a single aggressive move since the last Dark Crusade.

Something about that rang alarm bells in my mind. Admittedly, I was the furthest possible thing from an expert, but from what little I had been told, Viryans and not making aggressive moves was a contradiction in terms.

And nobody knows whats been happening in there for the last century and a half, added Biribo, but the fact theyve been hunkered down and not having wars or adventures suggests that none of the things which would cause a priceless artifact to get lost will have gone down.

So they still have my bow, I murmured. The problem isgetting it from them. Which means dealing with dark elf politics. Thoughts?

Well, boss, I suspect thats at least part of the reason Virya summoned you right into North Watch. Shylverrael is isolated and stagnant, which is basically the worst fate possible for a Viryan society. Its one city, the surrounding lake its built on, and the khora swamp around that. So, a small and desperate population, relatively speaking. Out of all the nominally Viryan societies on Ephemera, the Shylver are probably the least powerful and most desperate, and the one youd have the easiest time taking over. But easiest doesnt mean easy. The other side of that coin is that the arrival of a Dark Lord means the end of uncontested power for whoever holds it there now. I should warn you, Viryan countries have tried to assassinate Dark Lords for exactly that reason.

Uh huh. And how do I accomplish all this before Lady Gray either attacks North Watch or gets finished off by the adventurers Rhydions riled up?

Biribo ducked lower in the air as if to make himself less of a target. Uh, boss, realistically speaking, youdont. I told you there werent any good options! This is the least terrible one I could think of. They only get worse from here.

I was just swelling up to say something which Im sure would have been pithy and very educational for the children following us when I heard it. So did Newneh, the gwynnek raising her head and chirping a warning to her rider.

Ah! I grinned, craning my neck to peer up through khora branches. There it wasthe distant battlements of North Watch, and the frantic barking of Junko racing toward us. Well, all that can be dealt with later. Kids, ladies, were home.