this is crazy

[from_scratch]

Cam is watching a new recording of Atriama, tail swishing in the gap in his couch, and doesn't stop to pause the show when he feels a summons go by.

Comments

[from_scratch]

"Can you suggest anything that may ever have been recorded or written down on the topic?"

[wormcan]

"Her treaties," Rei speaks up again. "Some places send people in exchange for protection. Even having that agreement is enough to frighten most warlords away. And once she accepted that, she never took more or gave the city to anyone. When I was given this city, the deal said I never go near Chiange because she couldn't allow it."

[from_scratch]

Cam conjures up a complete set of treaties to which Moord Nag was a signatory.

[wormcan]

That is a rather long list. Some agreements are of the type Rei described. Most aren't. The shelf life of a local warlord is fairly low, and their second-most common method of settling differences involves running it by her. The general form of the latter is usually that A will stay out of B's city, or that C and D may ally, with Moord Nag providing enforcement. Sometimes she signed her name, other times it was a serpentine shadow topped by a human skull.

If the set is arranged chronologically, it does show the list of places nobody can occupy getting gradually longer whenever a province either sends victims or is awarded to a Moord Nag-approved warlord.

[from_scratch]

"This is suggestive," Cam acknowledges, when he's gone through them. Plus he can always go kill her later if he has to. "Will you sign an agreement not to aggress against others, kill exclusively in immediate self-defense without collateral damage or if for some reason I authorize you otherwise, and neither personally nor through proxy interfere with my projects?"

[whole_new_can]

"And in exchange, you leave me alive and with whatever authority people accept when not in danger?"

[from_scratch]

"That would be the idea, yes. With the understanding that I will expand when invited to do so by a population."

[whole_new_can]

"Yes. As long as your projects are no threat to provinces under my protection. If the inhabitants see you as someone to protect against, they may call on me. And if that happens I cannot promise not to oppose you."

[from_scratch]

"Well, then we may find ourselves doing this all over again if some sort of misinformation gets out, but I don't plan on harming civilians or harmless people in general."

[whole_new_can]

"Then, if you include defense of others alongside self-defense, this should not conflict with anything else where I have given my word."

[from_scratch]

"Okay. And if this works out and you seem to be behaving yourself I might be able to provide you ethically sourced power fuel, but we'll see how it goes first."

[whole_new_can]

"Three."

[from_scratch]

"Or maybe you will adopt a posture of only being interested in cooperating insofar as I trust complete strangers with enormous body counts and I won't want you to have any such thing! That's also an option." Cam shrugs, breaks the cuff on her foot, and appears a treaty.

[whole_new_can]

Wanting it in writing is kind of extraneous to the whole inviolability thing, but it's not like Cam is the first to want the formality. She signs her no longer accurately descriptive name.

[from_scratch]

Cam's was already on it. He slags the Hatchet Face head. He turns to Rei. "Are you covered under her agreement?"

[wormcan]

"If that kind of deal's all you want, I can be."

[from_scratch]

"Okay. See if you can sign one of these with your hands like that and then I'll see if I can undo the thing."

[wormcan]

Signatures don't usually need to be legible. He scribbles some mark to indicate agreeing.

[from_scratch]

Cam attempts to disintegrate the bone linking his ankles with interpolated water.

[wormcan]

That hurts, at least to the extent this guy can be hurt, but nothing disintegrates.

[from_scratch]

"Well, if you happen to know any substances that can damage your bones you could tell me, but if that didn't work..." Cam makes another Hatchet Face.

[wormcan]

"Nothing. I'm indestructible as far as," the Hatchet Face appears less than a Hatchet Face radius away. "Usually."

[from_scratch]

And with the Hatchet Face in place presumably Cam can just work with an ordinary saw and painkillers and then patch the skin where the bone grew through.

[wormcan]

Ordinary to Cam, yes. Not quite ordinary as far as the twenty-first-century observers are concerned.

[from_scratch]

Well, at any rate, Rei can move around again. And he can have a tracking chip as long as bits of him are numb. So can Moord Nag. So can all the sleeping assistant warlords before Cam wakes them up and explains the deal.