Chapter 58 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 58 — Sultan Rishi the Usurper

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: Open Hostilities · Previous: Chapter 57 — Thirty-two boxes; the last prisoner · Next: Chapter 59 — Operation Ruin · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

Rishi the naga, now ostensibly a member of the Princess Posse, stood before me.

Summary

Rishi, armless — 'clearly Li Na', Carl judges — in a prismatic containment shield under a spotlight, the last of the original Sultanate on the floor; he buried himself outside the castle and surrendered to Donut, Imani and Elle after Vinata died, and has asked for Carl. Carl's rule: grunts join, officers die at once, management is kept sealed until he comes. The viewer needle is blue. Rishi stayed out of the temple because he knew it meant death; he grieved his primary wife from the day the mantis team fled Faction Wars around the sixth floor — 'The mantids do not flee anything […] They were scared of something' — and asks whether Carl knows Aryl went dark. Carl: Formidable never reached the button; the AI dropped her in the ocean. The Great Consensus, which Carl heard from Loita: a philosophy that the Syndicate was a mistake and every system is better alone, twisted by some into purity (the Bloom, the mantids); the naga's version, Vinata's, was to steal the whole fleet they built and run for a generation in a direction no tunnel thread points. When the shipyard plan leaked — 'news broke', no leaker named — chaos at home, and with the news cut off by Carl's action item, Rishi hid to make an offer: a signed, AI-witnessed document for 'the de-facto leader of Earth' — the court granted the petition Rishi filed on Carl's behalf, since the number-one crawler and a warlord has a claim in the absence of a government — granting Earth natives citizenship in naga territories and five Naphil-class generation ships, in exchange for terraforming the other planets of the system after the crawl. His reasoning: if it ends as usual, Earth's children will need friends; if the AI's zone persists and the collection never comes, a new inner system will rise and the naga who stood by it will prosper. Vinata did not sign; Rishi did. Holistic: over 95% of viewers in 'newly-coined Naga Protectorate of the New Reformer' are watching; a Legendary Fan Box. 'I am now the leader of the new Naga Sultanate' — his brothers deposing the king and the king's remaining children, the prime minister and the House of Greens — signed 'Sultan Rishi the Usurper, First of his Name of the Naga Uprising', not the name in the achievement. Forty minutes; Katia has timed something perfectly with Milk's maps. Carl's counter-offer: shut up, take the ships and drive them into the nearest star. 'You have successfully marked Rishi of the Princess Posse.' To the watching system: another leader dead, 'Rishi here is just the opening act.'

Characters

• Rishi — Armless, smug, a self-made sultan with a contract; marked.
• Carl — Rishi's name for him: 'De-facto leader of Earth'; renegotiates with a ring.
• Li Na — Removed four arms as a precaution, Carl judges.
• Katia Grim — Milk's maps are 'insanely accurate'.

Locations

• Shanty Town — The brig; a prismatic cell.

Motifs

• The Blood Sultanate — A coup at home; a fleet to steal; a protectorate that watches Carl.
• The Great Consensus — 'The Syndicate was a mistake'; Vinata's plan to leave.
• The Ring of Divine Suffering — The opening act.
• The Syndicate — A court that names a crawler leader of a planet.