The Battle of Candle Arc

> "*I am not unaware of the numbers. But battle isn't just about numbers. It's about will. And you are Kel; in this matter you will prevail.*"
> ― Shuos Jedao
>
>

**The Battle of Candle Arc** is a short story which takes place in the Machineries of Empire universe, relating the events of the eponymous battle at the Candle Arc battledrift site. It was written by Yoon Ha Lee, published and recorded as a podcast in Clarkesworld Magazine (October 2012), and reprinted in *The Year’s Best SF* 18, ed. David G. Hartwel. It will reappear in Hexarchate Stories (2019).

## Blurb

*Warfare in a world where the calendar in use determines consensus reality, which in turn enables different exotic technologies, with a side helping of ethics.*

## Summary

After surviving an assassination attempt, Shuos Jedao tried, despite injuries, to observe his least favorite remembrance, the recently instituted Feast of Drownings, with his command moth's Doctrine officer, Captain-magistrate Rahal Korais. Afterwards, Jedao studied a visual of Candle Arc and consulted with the moth commander, Kel Menowen, convincing her with difficulty that their small, battered force could score a victory against the rebellious Lanterners instead of running for help.

After requisitioning a swarm of Rahal vessels equipped with calendrical lenses to mimic the Twin Axes swarm, which could not be spared from the Taurag border, the swarms proceeded to Candle Arc, arriving on the Day of Broken Feet. The Rahal were sent ahead to pass the locus of the calendrical choke. Jedao's fangmoth swarm then cut to invariant propulsion and hid in calendrical null space behind the arc's battledrift. Due to the calendrical terrain, the incoming Lanterners, homing in on the Rahal, were funneled down a thin channel and easily taken by the Kels' invariant weapons from behind.

Completely routed, many of the surviving Lanterner ships attempted to flee. A hail from one of their hellmoths proved to be a Lanterner mutineer offering Jedao their general as a hostage in exchange for letting the rest of the Lanterners go. Jedao refused, realizing that Korais would attempt to cement the calendrical recovery by ritually torturing the general during the last hours of the Day of Broken Feet. Ordering his swarm to annihilate anything still in range after seven minutes, Jedao, still badly injured, collapsed and was taken to Medical while Commander Menowen carried out his orders.

Menowen arrived at Jedao's quarters later with remembrance candles, reporting that Doctrine had provisionally replaced the Day of Broken Feet with a remembrance of his victory, which, due to his actions, would not involve torture. Approving of his reason for depriving Doctrine of heretics to torture, she declared herself his ally. Once she left, Jedao lit the candles and pondered his next move -- against the high calendar itself.

## Trivia

* *The Battle of Candle Arc* was the first published story in the Machineries of Empire universe, though *Ninefox Gambit* was written first.
* Jedao's tactics are based on Admiral Yi Sun-Shin’s tactics at the Battle of Myeongnyang during the Imjin War, though Jedao's victory was less decisive than the Admiral's so as not to strain reader credulity. The suggestion of using a historical battle for inspiration came from a beta reader, Daedala. A 2D pencil schematic of the tactical situation at Candle Arc is posted on the author's blog.
* Jedao's injuries were caused during the Feast of the Falcon's Eye by a shattergun, the only references to this feast and weapon in canon.
* Shortly before the battle, Jedao notices that his watch is off by a fraction of a second, but decides that Korais has more important things to do than to recalibrate it to the high calendar. In later years, after his death, the hexarchate would ban watches as dangerously heretical due to their fallibility.
* The Rahal swarm used the formation Senner's Lash to mimic a Kel swarm.
* Centuries later, High Magistrate Rahal Zaniin remarked on Jedao's preventing Doctrine from using a Lanterner as an on-the-spot remembrance.
* The events of the Battle of Candle Arc were (badly) dramatized in the eponymous episode of *A Labyrinth of Foxes*.

## Links

* Notes on author's website
* Full story at Clarkesworld
* Clarkesworld podcast read by Kate Baker

## References

1. ↑ Author's blog: Hexarchate Stories due in June 2019
2. ↑ Author's website
3. ↑ The Battle of Candle Arc
4. ↑ The 1000 Year Plan: Revenant Gun Blog Tour Q&A with Yoon Ha Lee
5. ↑ Author's website
6. ↑ The 1000 Year Plan: Revenant Gun Blog Tour Q&A with Yoon Ha Lee
7. ↑ Author's blog
8. ↑ Raven Strategem, Chapter 2
9. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 19
10. ↑ Revenant Gun, Chapter 11