Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 763
might command the meek mecha in the walls, but no one
commanded the Winds. From now until the end of time, they
and humans would share responsibility for Ventus, and neither
side would let the other harm their world.
This situation was just. It was everything she had ever
dreamed of. It also made rulership irrelevant for Galas--and
that, too, was just.
Someone knocked on the door as she was hauling the
abbot’s old desk from its old position to a better one. "Come
in!" She drew a hand through her tangled hair and smiled as
Armiger entered.
He was dressed in traveler’s clothes again, fresh ones that
still looked a bit stiff on him. His face had regained its fleshly
colors; the Archipelago had required that he be stripped of his
nanotechnological core. He was only a man now, albeit one
with memories of being a god.
"My dear friend," she said. "How do you like my new
palace?"
"Everywhere you are, is a palace." He laughed at the
sour expression she shot back. He too seemed transformed,
these days. He was even able to joke. "So you’re really
staying here?" he asked, sending an appraising look around the
narrow room. “The Winds are building new Manses; you
could move into one of those, without having to feel you’d
taken it from anybody.”
"This is all I need." She went to him, and took his hand.
"What about you? Have you decided what you need?"
"No." He shrugged. "I don’t yet know who I am, I
suppose."
"Welcome to humanity, Armiger," she said wryly. "Let
me tell you a secret: you will never know who you are."
He shook his head. "Am I human, really? I think I was