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.
"I mean, if we can't work something out you can be powerless and dead because you're too much trouble to keep an eye on. Is that better?"
I am obeyed because I am feared, and I am feared because I have lasted. Do you imagine my subordinates will follow your orders, or will you fight them one at a time like you did Rei?"
He kicks a rock at his boss. It flies past her, predictably faster than it ought to be moving, and smashes into the jar of Hatchet Face. Moord Nag's shadow swells back up from nothing, and strikes at Cam even before reaching its former size.
Then he remakes the Hatchet Face head.
"So we're not going to be coming to any kind of consensus here?" he sighs.
"It seems we won't."
"And you have way too many allies for me to just keep you in custody like I did with Bonesaw. Aaaaand if I send you to the Birdcage you'll probably just slaughter everyone in it. Killing people is not my favorite activity but you're not giving me a lot of options."
"I could agree to kill no one unless they are the aggressor, if that is what it takes. And if in the future you decide to kill more people, you can always give them to me instead."
And after that she'll, what, fail to kill him again? Whatever. "Can I consult anything other than your say-so for information about your attitude towards contracts?"
That was twice."
"Well, if you're not going to forgive me for not already having a complete record of your contract-making history on hand we may have a separate problem."
"Yeah, I mostly just have this habit of not taking supervillains' words for things when I have them at metaphorical gunpoint. Can you overlook this character flaw of mine or should I skip the part where I verify your statement?"
"I was not proposing any sort of memory alteration," Cam says, and he makes an instance of his computer and sifts through it for anything available on Moord Nag's reputation for keeping her bargains.
She does meet whatever minimum level of reliability it takes to be the last word in the local lack of a legal system, but Cam's computer can't confirm or deny that Moord Nag is the second coming of Marquis.
"Can you suggest anything that may ever have been recorded or written down on the topic?"
"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."
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.
"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?"