Chapter 14
The Orbiis office in Lacanthim was not merely “rudimentary” but was in fact a set of unkempt stables with a very small medikker and surgery bay at the back.
As was required for imperial medikker facilities, one chamber of the surgery bay was “secured” and was set behind walls of thick, warped glass.
It was instantly clear from the chamber’s pristine look that it hadn’t been used in weeks.
When I described this to Ana, she chuckled nastily where she sat beside me and said, “Probably don’t have much use for secured chambers here! I am sure they mostly deal with diarrhetic mules or some such. This must be the most exciting thing to happen in this grubby little goddamn place in ages.”
The corpse of Zansay Burav was laid out upon the surgery table behind the glass, stripped of all clothing, her pale gray eyes now slightly sunken.
Her skin had grown mottled and discolored from pooling blood.
As distasteful as this was to me, Commander Tauri didn’t seem to mind, and hummed to himself as he bustled about like a cook in his kitchens.
First he cut Zansay Burav’s hair with a pair of shears, then daubed her scalp with lather and shaved it with a razor.
It seemed a difficult task, for the chamber was lit by a single measly mai-lamp, and Commander Tauri wore a full warding suit and helm to protect himself from any contagion.
He had to keep regripping the razor in his sweaty gloves and tapping the glass orbs of his warding helm to shake loose the condensation to see.
Once he finished, the commander set down his razor and began his final treatments.
First he hung some dozen or so telltale plants from the ceiling, each bound in tiny cages.
Then he laid out small vats of soil about Zansay Burav’s shaved head and anchored the vats to the table with heavy clamps.
After this, he painted her pate with a purplish fluid, drawing lines about the seams of her skull.
Last of all, he lit a small cup of reagent with a flare-pot, allowing a soft haze to fill the chamber.
He then doused the flames and began to prepare the chamber for his departure.
“He won’t cut?” I asked, surprised, after I had described this to Ana.
“Oh, no!” she said. “Contagion autopsies are not done in person. Too much risk! A body might be playing host to something quite hostile. An abscess brimming with worms that come spilling out when breached…that sort of thing.”
My cheeks were beginning to ache from being maneuvered into expressions of extreme disgust.
“What he will do is instead entice threadvine to do these tasks for him,” said Ana.
“A type of fretvine, but one specifically for rending flesh and bone. I believe it is also used in the flensing halls of this canton. It will sprout from the soil he has laid down, seek out the reagent he has painted on her skull, bite into the bone there, and retract, splitting it apart. What he intends to achieve by doing this, I don’t yet know—but given that it is a neuro-fungus, I presume he must look directly at the brain and its tissues. ”
I muttered something about being happy I had not yet dined.
Commander Tauri slipped out the door of the chamber.
His two assistants—also bound in warding suits—promptly doused him with acrid reagents to kill all organic matter upon him.
Then they did the same to each other: a slightly comic sight, these three people so assiduously lathering one another in their drooping, oily suits.
Then they paced in circles, waving their arms about, before finally removing their helms and suits and approaching.
“I so dislike warding apparel,” Tauri remarked with a sigh.
“If I can’t taste the air, it burdens my spirits terribly.
But the job is done! The girl’s cadaver shall soon tell us the nature of the thing now festering in her skull.
” He glanced back at Zansay. “How strange, that flesh can put such emotions in our mind. She was but carbon and water animated—and yet I can’t help but feel sad to see her there. ”
“Yes, yes, a tragedy,” said Ana, indifferent. “But shall ripping the girl’s head open be enough, sir?”
He regarded Ana with a wary eye. “Ah! I see your immunis has arrived, Kol. I don’t believe we’ve been introduced…”
I speedily made introductions between the two of them, yet I noted that Tauri studied Ana’s blindfold with a great deal of interest.
“To answer your question, Dolabra…yes, a simple cranial split will give us much of what we need,” said Tauri.
“The guiding web is a very, shall we say, robust specimen. I’ve also prepared a spectrum of telltale plants that should inform us of how the fungus operates the moment the aperture is completed.
” He waved at the constellation of tiny, leafy cages hanging above Zansay’s corpse behind the glass.
“And how long will that take?” asked Ana.
“Twenty, thirty minutes. Not long.”
“Then I hope I can ply you with many questions while we wait, Commander. Namely, about what the hell the guiding web is, how it works, and how it might have come to infest and condition human beings.”
“Ohh,” said Tauri. “And here I thought the evening was already quite poor. I will have to create a concoction before we speak. My saline levels are all awry, I’m afraid.”
“What?” said Ana impatiently. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I sweated a great deal in there, Immunis. My head now spins.”
“Can it not wait?” she demanded. “We’ve something of a critical situation, true? I can’t imagine darting away for a sip or a bit of sup right now!”
I coughed. “I suddenly recall, ma’am, that evening when you insisted on staying at your table to finish your pork rib roast, even though a good portion of the inn had caught fire at the time…”
“Well, that was because I was very hungry, Din!” she snapped. “And the seasoning on that roast was particularly fine!”
Tauri bowed. “Apologies, apologies! Give me a moment, it won’t take long…”
He bustled about at the well pump in the corner of the surgery bay, scooped up a cup of fresh water, and poured in a pinch of powder.
He stirred it as he returned to us—I caught a whiff of something acrid and tangy, like salted lemons—and he sipped it with a wrinkled nose.
“I stay here so rarely,” he muttered, “that I forget the intense mineral concentrations in the well water…”
“Hum,” said Ana. “You are an efthiki, then?”
A prim smile. “Correct. Like most in the Orbiis, I have been altered to be preternaturally sensitive to all compounds entering or engaging with my person. It has rendered me very perceptive, true, but…I’m also perhaps the worst dinner guest in all the world now.
” A flash of a sad smile—this one directed at me. “So! The guiding web.”
—
Commander Tauri bound up his blond hair in a great, sloppy bun and sat beside Ana.
I studied him as he did so. He was a strange creature, but he was also without a doubt one of the most beautiful people I had ever encountered.
He sported high, hairless cheeks and a small, curled nose, and of course his hair was a strange, bright gold.
Though he’d identified himself as male, there was something androgynous to him, perhaps even otherworldly, as if he was from a species of being that did not conform to my concepts of biology.
“There are technically two forms of the fungus known as the guiding web,” Commander Tauri began, sipping from his brew.
“The first is the natural, unaltered version. It’s most commonly found here, in Sapirdad, in pools and streams. Creates a cloudy, hazy structure in the waters.
Creatures drink from the water, consume the fungus.
Then something very strange happens to their brains. ”
“It doesn’t condition them like we do the cats, surely…” said Ana. “I am guessing it makes them sensitive to sounds, then?”
“Ah, correct! Very clever. The web makes the animal drawn to the sound of water. Running water, dripping water. It rewrites their desires, makes them addicted to tarrying near water like a sotman is addicted to the tavern. It even augments their aural faculties slightly, so they can hear the sound of water at a long distance. They are compelled to linger near these places. It gives them a rush of all sorts of pleasant hormones when they do. It rewards them, you see. They stay there. Then they starve. Then they die. Then it fruits.”
“Fruits?” said Ana sharply.
“It comes from behind the ear. A great, black stalk. But though the host’s skull is now marred, and the creature itself technically dead, the fungus isn’t done yet!
Once it’s sprouted, it will force the host’s body to walk along the water’s edge.
As it does this, its stalk releases its spores.
It covers its distance, you see! Wants to contaminate all the waters it can!
A very ingenious, very unusual evolution, really, always spreading to new sources of water. ”
Ana began rocking back and forth. “Does this natural form of the web affect human beings?”
“Oh, certainly. If you categorize a miserable, awful death as ‘affect,’ that is. It is very adept at invading any creature with functional ears and a nervous system.”
“I see,” she said. “And the other?”
“The other form of the guiding web,” said Tauri very heavily, “is known as the domesticated web, or the agrarian web. It is much reduced and very refined, harnessed to condition living beings to respond to notes, pitches, and sounds in specific ways. It has not been proven to affect humans—though it can cause a dreadful headache if they consume a good deal of it. It only works upon the drokha-cats, however, and few other select creatures.”
“And how is this done?” demanded Ana. “How have they fashioned it so that the web only works on select species?”
“A very good question!” said Tauri. “The answer is—with corpses.”
“Beg pardon, sir?” I said.