[Author’s Note: We've returned to Rin's encounter with Karkov, right after the events of episode 54.]
“He’s alive?” Rin quietly repeated. “I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t believe you. Stop playing games, and let’s just get this over with. I have places to be. And so do you.”
Karkov’s air of casual indifference suddenly vanished, and he seemed concerned. “Wait, please. Hear me out.”
“Begging? Yes, begging is good. Beg, little dog.”
Karkov regained his composure and sounded more disappointed than offended. “Please, that’s beneath even you. I’m just trying to have a civil conversation.”
“And I’m just trying to put you in hell. This time, let’s go with what I want.”
Karkov tensed as she reached toward him, and Rin was unsure whether pride or confidence kept him from leaping back. Did he think his protections would keep her from binding him? Surely, he must know they wouldn’t. Just before reaching him, Rin stopped short and snatched the crown from the table. She casually examined it.
“It is a nice imitation. But the front is too heavy.”
Rin produced a pocket knife and began to pry the sphere off. The look on Karkov’s face confirmed her suspicion.
“It was no accident that a sphere graced the front of my crown,” she reminisced, while working it loose. “You probably never saw, but the previous king had a big jewel there.”
“Just because I wasn’t highborn doesn’t mean I was oblivious. Everybody knew about it.” Karkov’s voice was tense despite a clear effort to appear unperturbed. “I tried to find it after you …” He apparently thought better of finishing the sentence. “What happened to it?”
“I sold it, of course. It was the first thing I did when I became queen.” She ceased her fiddling for a second and looked at Karkov. “It fetched less than you would have thought. For some reason, people considered it cursed.”
“I can’t imagine why,” he noted dryly as Rin returned to her work. “I can help with that,” he offered.
Rin shot him an amused smirk.
Karkov sighed. “I’m just trying to be a gentleman.”
“The interesting thing isn’t the glorified piece of glass that some minor king deemed opulent,” she explained. “It’s what I replaced it with.”
“A cheap metal orb?”
“Did you ever wonder why I chose that as my symbol?”
“Originally, I assumed it represented industry rather than pomp. When you later told me of the spheres, I took it to be an emblem of their power. Wasn’t it?”
“After a fashion.” Rin gave a shy smile. “It was my own sphere.”
Karkov couldn’t hide his surprise. “Weren’t you worried?”
She smiled. “Aren’t you?”
Having dislodged the sphere from the crown, Rin held it up. “Isn’t it funny that so many years later, you happened to have the same idea. The same silly idea.” Her voice was distant, as if she spoke to herself.
When Karkov said nothing, Rin laughed. “I know you too well, my dear. You probably planned to taunt me with it when I returned the crown or left it behind.”
She gave him an impish grin. “Wouldn’t I be upset to know I had been wearing your sphere on my head? Or that I had it in my grasp and let is slip. I’m sure you had some witty remark prepared. Did you imagine it was a harmless prank? That it carried no risk?”
Karkov’s body grew taut, and Rin’s eyes returned to him. “Don’t bother. You’re not fast enough.”
He slumped back into his seat. “No, I suppose not. But before you do that, you should consider it carefully.”
Here it came. Karkov always had an angle.
“I’ve considered it for quite a while now,” Rin remarked with some amusement. “Considering it has been a great source of joy for me.”
Karkov looked at her. “I’m sorry for you, then.”
“Well, let’s get this over with. Make your case, so I can get to the fun bit.”
“Doesn’t sound like it will be much fun at all,” he protested.
“It will for one of us. Just like sex.”
“That’s not how I recall it.”
“Of course not.” Rin smiled sweetly.
Karkov gave an uneasy laugh. “You picked me. You married me. You were the queen and could have had anyone. I’d say that my qualifications weren’t in question. Why else would you want me? I was a nobody. Women always say this sort of stuff when they feel spiteful.”
“Is that so? I just destroy people when I feel spiteful. But if you must know, I’m not being mean. You were gorgeous, and I really liked you. That’s it.”
“But I was bad in bed?” Karkov appeared completely dumbfounded.
“Well, you weren’t great. Why does it matter so much to you? If I were facing eternal torment, I wouldn’t worry about what some ex-lover thought of my sexual performance as a kid.”
He looked downcast. “Ex-lover? We were married. We are married. You’re right though — I’m being silly. You granted me immortality, but I guess I’m still a man.”
“I’ll give you that.” Rin’s voice was softer, almost sad.
Karkov suddenly perked up. “But I’ve had a lot of practice since then. I think you’ll find I learned a thing or two. And I’m still gorgeous.”
Rin could not help laughing, and he seemed slightly offended.
“Seriously? Those are your last words? Begging for one last pity fuck?”
“It wouldn’t be a pity fuck. You’d be the one in hell, knowing you’ll never have as good again.” Karkov’s face was so sincere that Rin couldn’t tell whether he was joking. Was the urbane mastermind really just a testy frat-boy? Maybe she didn’t know him, after all. She rolled her eyes.
“As tempting as your offer may be, I’m going to decline placing my body at your disposal at this critical moment. And lest you forget, your clock is ticking.” Despite her words, Rin returned to her seat, and Karkov was visibly relieved.
“I knew you would be reasonable.”
Rin toyed with his sphere. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I simply got tired of standing while you blather on. I said I’d listen to your last words, not indulge an interminable stream of futile machinations. It’s pathetic, really. Speak your piece already, so I can ignore it, bind you in eternal torment, and make it back for Happy Hour.”
“Silly me. I thought listening meant the other person speaks and you … well, listen. My English must not be very good.”
“They’re not last words if they never end,” Rin shot back. “You’re the one destined for hell, not me. Besides, I have what I need.”
“Fine, be like that,” Karkov sulked.
He sprang up energetically and clapped his hands together. “I know! Wouldn’t it be more fun if we knew all of each other’s secrets? Leveled the playing field so to speak.”
Rin knew the expression on Karkov’s face. It was that of a man before a knife fight, the desire to kill but also open himself to being killed. Her eyes replied in kind, and for an instant it was unclear whether she wanted to kill or screw him. Instead she shook her head in disbelief, partly that Karkov thought his nonsense would work on her and partly because that nonsense actually did work on her.
“I’m sure that would suit you just fine. And why would I do that, when I have all the cards?” Rin asked. “Let me think about this. I’m about to put you in checkmate, so instead I should throw away half my pieces to make the game more fun. Makes sense to me.”
Karkov smiled. “Maybe I’m playing wrong, but there is no checkmate in cards. And it may seem that way, but you have nothing to lose. According to you, checkmate was and is inevitable. Why do you care if I delay the game a few moves? It could even turn to your advantage. Perhaps putting me in checkmate isn’t your winning move.”
“No, I’m pretty sure that’s how you win.”
“Let me ask you a question. Suppose you destroyed me, or whatever you call it. What then?”
Rin offered a weak smile. “You suffer forever, and I move on with my life.”
“To what? Your life never ends. If you divide it at any point into before and after, before always will be finite and after always will be infinite.”
“It’s still a victory.”
“That’s an odd sort of victory if it removes all possibility of future victories.”
Rin scoffed. “The same could be argued to any conqueror and with equal success. Don’t flatter yourself; I’ll find other things to do. There are plenty of other Proteges.”
“You’ll run out of them, and then there won’t be anybody left to hate.”
She sighed. “I don’t hate you. I never hated you. This isn’t about hate.”
“Then what is it about?”
“You’re already trying to get me to exchange secrets. Very clever. Do you really think this will work?”
“It has to. If you send me to hell, you’ll follow soon after.”
Rin eyed him with contempt. “I didn’t think you’d resort to empty threats.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Karkov replied. “After me, there is nobody else. Judging by your confidence, you must be at least a Sixteen. Maybe a Sixteen with better protections than me, but I doubt that.”
“I didn’t skimp on yours,” Rin grumbled.
“I know that. You loved me a great deal, I think.”
“You think?”
“I know,” he said softly. They stared at one another for a few moments before Karkov broke the silence.
“Think about this,” he persisted. “Right now, it would be an empty victory. You said it yourself: you have all the cards. There’s no excitement, no glory.”
“I’m not after excitement or glory.”
“Are you after boredom? For the rest of eternity, you’ll face not a single foe who is a challenge.”
“Even if you knew everything I know, you still wouldn’t be a challenge,” Rin countered. “I am something you never can be, and it has nothing to do with my number.”
“Then what have you got to lose? You always can find me again. Heck, you only found me this time because I let you.”
Rin’s eyes narrowed. “I think you’re overestimating your prowess. And I always could create another Sixteen if I felt bored. One less talkative.”
“Perhaps, but you won’t. Otherwise, why would you be killing us? And you certainly can’t create another love.”
Rin audibly scoffed at that word, but Karkov continued. “Besides, it would break your vow.”
When this failed to elicit any reaction, he took a different tack. “You are forgetting one very important thing.”
“What’s that?” Rin asked, suddenly weary of the whole exchange. She really did just want to move on.
“I wasn’t lying. Darrouil is alive, and I have him. Do you think me stupid enough to kill him?”
“I don’t know what to think of you, Karkov. You’re … different. But why should I believe you?”
Karkov shrugged. “You don’t have to. It’s simple logic. If you defeat me now, Darrouil will die for certain and you will be bored for certain. If you do not, then he may be alive and you will find me again at some point.”
“I’d be back where I started,” Rin objected.
“Which is where you belong and wish to be.”
“Do not presume to know what I wish or do not wish. But even supposing what you say is true, you are asking for more than mere forbearance. You want us to exchange information.”
“That’s because I’m being generous. I could just demand the information from you, and it still would make sense for you to agree.”
Rin felt her temper rising. “I may have a very different notion of what makes sense.”
“Well, then think of it this way. You’ll get to tell me all about how horrible my torment will be. And you can ask me anything you want in return.”
“I have no questions and you have no answers. Besides, you’d just lie anyway.”
Karkov considered this. “That is indeed a risk. But once you destroy me, you’ll never find out anything. If a question occurs to you later, there will be no way to answer it. As it is, if I tell you something, you’ll have forever to cleverly decipher it, determine its truth, and glean any hidden meaning. Even a potential lie can be useful, but not if you don’t hear it.”
“I’m not that sentimental. I can live without knowing.” Rin contemplated her sphere and Karkov’s, one in each hand.
She looked at him and smirked. “For somebody so confident that I can’t do anything to you, you seem awfully desperate to convince me not to do this ‘anything’ which I supposedly can’t do.”
Karkov regarded her. “It’s not so much that I think you can’t — though I do think that. It’s that I know you won’t.”
In response to the predatory glimmer in Rin’s eyes, he quickly elaborated. “You’re a woman.”
“Thank you for noticing. What gave it away?” Before Karkov could respond, she smiled sweetly. “Is this going to offend my feminist sensibilities?”
“We both know that your decision already has been made and nothing I can say will change it.”
“So you did learn something over the last few thousand years.”
Karkov gave her a pointed look. “I learned that well before then.”
“So why bother with all this?”
“You won’t admit what that decision is,” he explained. “Not even to yourself.”
Rin’s voice grew cold. “Thank you for teaching me about myself. How much do you charge per hour?”
“That depends which hour. The last one is the most expensive.” Before Rin could respond, he quickly continued. “What I can do is help give you the excuse to accept the decision you already made.”
“Which you think you know.”
“Which we both know. As complex as you are, you are no different from every other woman in this way.” Seeing the glint of anger in her eye, he hastened to add, “Just as I am no different from any other man in some regards.”
“How noble to place yourself alongside me in the gutter.”
“Just let me get to my point, dammit.”
Rin had a ready retort but decided to let Karkov have his say. It was enough seeing him flustered. She was acutely aware of the accomplishment this represented.
“As I said, you know what you want to do but need to be absolved of responsibility for doing it. You require a good reason why it won’t be your fault, won’t be a capitulation, and won’t be a failure. A reason why you have no choice and lose no dignity.”
“So you’re here on a mission of mercy, to help me save face when I inevitably spare you because that’s what I want to do?”
She gestured with her sphere. “That’s an interesting theory. A very interesting theory. Fortunately, we don’t need to speculate about such things. I can tell you exactly what I want to do.” She gave him a wicked grin.
“And what about Darrouil?” There was a rising note of panic in Karkov’s voice. “He will be killed. Can you live with that?”
Rin replied with a smile. “I can live with a lot of things.”
And with that, she tapped Karkov’s sphere against her own.