Duke and Larem q'Jones

The relationship between Duke and Larem q’Jones is one of the clearest personal expressions of the conflict between human Paladin institutions and the Kalith living among them. Duke sees Larem as an enemy, a security threat, and evidence that the organization has abandoned its proper purpose; Larem sees Duke as a dangerous bigot whose contempt for the Kalith can turn into violence. Their encounters move from guarded observation and rumor to an armed confrontation in which Larem has the power to kill Duke but deliberately leaves him alive.

Origins of Hostility

Duke’s hostility is rooted in a rigid division between humans and Kalith. He has little use for any of the Kalith and makes his contempt visible even when Larem is escorting Sasha Willis, knowing that Larem’s presence restrains him from openly insulting her. Duke’s institutional resentment intensifies after Colonel Kincade is arrested and removed from Seattle. In Duke’s view, the Paladins have begun favoring their “pet Others” over the guards, while the Kalith receive access, salaries, and influence that he believes should belong to humans.

The hostility is reinforced by rumor. At a bar, Rusty tells Duke that the Paladins have been associating with the enemy, arresting local administrators, and allowing Others to move through headquarters alone. Duke confirms that Seattle’s budget pays the salaries of three adult Kalith, including Larem, and suspects that the instructors are exchanging human weapons knowledge for information about Kalith fighting methods. His suspicion turns Larem’s ordinary employment as a weapons instructor into imagined evidence of espionage.

Duke’s view of Larem is also shaped by the Paladin Resurrection Cycle. After Larem is badly wounded, Duke learns that Kalith healing has brought him back from the edge of death and regards the recovery as an injustice. Duke contrasts Larem’s return with the deaths of his own friends, who will not come back, and releases his rage against a training bag while imagining it is Larem. His resentment is therefore both political and personal: Larem embodies the enemy Duke fears, the institutional changes he despises, and the unequal relationship between Kalith mortality and Paladin resurrection.

Larem’s Position and Restraint

Larem approaches the relationship from a far more unstable position. Formerly a Blademate to a Sworn Guardian, he once understood his place in Kalith society and served his people with honor. In Seattle, he survives on a small Paladin paycheck for teaching weapons practice and regards that income as charity while he learns how to make an independent life. He has been betrayed too often by his own kind to trust his former enemies easily, and he sometimes considers returning to Kalithia despite the death sentence awaiting him there.

That uncertainty makes his conduct toward Duke significant. Larem has every reason to distrust the humans who surround him, yet he continues to work within their institution and to honor the obligations he has accepted there. When Sasha Willis is with him, he refuses to abandon his escort duties because Duke would otherwise direct his hostility toward her as well as toward Larem. Larem’s protection is practical, but it also exposes the moral difference between them: Duke treats association with a Kalith as contamination, while Larem accepts responsibility even when the human system offers him little security or respect.

The contrast becomes sharper in the tunnels, where hostile Kalith call Larem a traitor because he has chosen to live in the light. They threaten Sasha because she is human, but Larem refuses to let them harm her and insists that she has done nothing to them. His position places him between two hostile communities. Duke sees only a traitor or infiltrator; Larem’s actions show someone attempting to preserve an ethical obligation across the very boundary that Duke regards as absolute.

Surveillance, Rumor, and Escalation

Duke does not merely dislike Larem; he monitors the relationships and movements that might connect Larem to human authority. He follows Sasha after a gathering at Lacey Sebastian’s home and watches her leave with Lonzo Jones and Larem. When Larem lifts Sasha into the truck cab and later sets her down outside the hotel, Duke interprets their physical closeness as proof of a dangerous intimacy. He is especially disturbed when Sasha smiles, leans on Larem’s shoulders, and allows him to draw her into the shadows.

The same suspicion drives Duke’s attention to Sasha’s visit to Laurel Young’s laboratory. He can accept her concern for wounded personnel, but he cannot accept that she speaks privately with Devlin Bane and then visits the wounded Kalith. To Duke, her concern suggests that the boundary between human authority and Kalith identity is dissolving. He also suspects that Larem and Barak q’Young may have been sent across the Barrier to gather intelligence, and he considers the Kalith instructors’ access to human weapons potentially more dangerous than their visible fighting ability.

Duke’s private suspicions become part of a broader conspiracy. He receives orders to watch Sasha Willis and report on her conduct, then meets Rusty, who argues that Colonel Kincade had been on the guards’ side and that the Paladins and their “pets” are taking control of the organization. Duke’s willingness to hear this argument shows that his prejudice is not an isolated personal quirk; it is being organized through surveillance, anonymous information, rumor, and appeals to institutional grievance.

The Confrontation

The conflict finally becomes explicit when Duke insults Sasha Willis in Larem’s presence. Larem gives the men with Duke an opportunity to apologize and even offers them time to leave peacefully. Duke refuses, directing a sexual insult at Sasha and using Larem’s identity as a Kalith to justify his contempt. The insult reveals the structure of their antagonism: Duke attacks Sasha for associating with Larem, while attacking Larem as proof that such association is degrading.

Larem responds according to a mixed code of Kalith warrior honor and protective duty. He picks up Lonzo’s sword and offers it to Duke hilt first, explaining that he wants to be able to tell Devlin Bane that he gave Duke a chance to defend himself. The gesture transforms the encounter from an uncontrolled beating into a formalized choice, although the imbalance between a Kalith warrior and an unprepared human means that Duke has little realistic chance of prevailing.

Larem then places the sword at Duke’s throat and demands an apology to Sasha. He warns Duke never to approach her again and tells him to pass the warning to the anonymous person connected to the conspiracy. He strikes Duke hard enough to knock him unconscious, but stops short of killing him. The decision is not sentimental: Larem knows that Devlin would want the conspiracy exposed and that killing Duke would permanently destroy their only lead. Even in the moment of greatest personal disgust, Larem allows consequence and duty to restrain vengeance.

Meaning and Outcome

Duke and Larem’s relationship dramatizes two incompatible responses to uncertainty. Duke converts institutional change into proof of betrayal and converts Larem’s presence into evidence of threat. His language reduces Kalith people to enemies, pets, or weapons, making violence appear defensive before it occurs. Larem, by contrast, cannot erase the injuries caused by either humans or Kalith, but he continues to distinguish between guilt and identity. He resists hostile Kalith who call him a traitor, protects Sasha from them, and refuses to kill Duke when killing him would be easier.

Their relationship also exposes the conflict between different legal and moral orders. Duke relies on guard loyalty, human solidarity, and the authority of the anti-Kalith faction; Larem invokes sworn duty, warrior procedure, and the immediate obligation to protect a person under his care. The sword offered to Duke is therefore both a threat and a limit. Larem’s power is undeniable, but his choice not to use it absolutely prevents the encounter from becoming a simple confirmation of Duke’s fears.

The antagonism does not disappear after the confrontation. Duke’s hatred is part of the larger reaction against Kalith-human coexistence in Seattle, while Larem remains vulnerable because his residence in the human world is politically contested. Even Chaz Willis later admits that allowing Larem and the other Kalith to remain may be a major mistake, though he also acknowledges that reversing the situation could provoke rebellion. Against that continuing pressure, Larem and Duke represent opposing futures: one in which difference is treated as a reason for exclusion and violence, and another in which protection, discipline, and chosen responsibility make coexistence possible despite fear.