Chapter 23 #3
The ride back to Lacanthim was far more dismal than the ride out. The rain had stopped, denying the Orbiis any distraction—and, of course, we now had three wrapped, nude, infected corpses aboard with us.
But none seemed more abject than Tauri, who refused to remove his warding helm, even though we were now far from the flensing halls, and even though he was obviously parched, sweating, and near dehydration.
Warding suits could be dangerous things, but especially for a person as altered and sensitive as he.
“Your eyes are swollen, sir,” I warned him. “I can see them through your helm. It’s been hours, sir. Shouldn’t y—”
“I will suffer more,” he snapped, “if I take the helmet off now! The winds are all wrong! Don’t test me on this, Kol!”
When we finally arrived at Lacanthim, Tauri ripped his helmet off and took a great gasping breath. He looked terrible, his pale skin now bright red and his forehead dripping with sweat.
“Would you like my waterskin?” I asked, offering it to him.
“No, no!” he rasped. “I must have my own. I am forced to drink…drink different waters after such dehydration.” He pulled out his own waterskin and drank deeply from it, whispering, “Thank Sanctum…” Then he staggered away and sat in a small stretch of pasture, drinking in water and sucking in the air.
I followed him. Tauri sat hunched in the grasses and fumbled about with a small object in his hands. Then, with an air of practiced nonchalance, he produced a small pipe, threaded a glass cylinder filled with a yellow powder into its cup, shook it, and puffed at it.
I watched him, slightly incredulous: this, I knew, was urlev-puff, a powerful mood stimulant that draped the mind in a blanket of pleasant bafflement.
It was not only highly regulated but wildly illegal for use in the imperial services.
And yet somehow—perhaps due to his very affected insouciance as he puffed at it again—I felt bemused rather than shocked.
“Will you arrest me for this indulgence, Signum Kol?” he sighed, exhaling mist from his lips.
“Doing so would cripple my investigation, sir,” I said, sidling up to him. “So probably not.”
“How very practical,” he drawled. His eyes were now densely reddened, and he grinned and sucked at his pipe again.
“A bit odd, isn’t it, that the Empire forbids the use of moodies in the Iyalets—and yet if you are stationed at the walls, they give you no end of treats and tinctures to keep your mind stable.
” A curl of urlev-mist leaked out of his lips and up his cheeks.
“Tough to get the real stuff these days. I am forced to resort to cheaper methods. Isn’t quite the same. ”
“You find Sapirdad as stressful as a Legionnaire might the sea walls?”
He laughed roughly. “Perhaps! You might know. You yourself have been at the sea walls, I think. True?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mm. I can tell. Engravers always pick up little things from other people. Habits and tricks and such. Part of your memorization, I suppose. The Legion has a very particular way of bowing—showing the back of the neck at the bottom. You bow the precise same way.” Another great draught of water, another suck at his pipe.
“I was there, too, once. But that does not shock you, of course.”
I said nothing. Just waited.
“You were quite right before, Kol. Found myself stationed on a bombard crew some fourteen years ago. My duty was to design, manage, and aim great, hellish weapons, and rain down slaughter upon those unearthly abominations. Did my bit, bore the smokes and the blasts. Then they asked if I would like to go elsewhere—for the Orbiis in Sapirdad had need of a new commander. It seemed like heaven, compared to what I’d witnessed.
Being a gardener for this little patch of pleasant earth?
Delightful. But—you haven’t ever seen an Orbiis Caelia, have you? ”
“Haven’t, sir.”
“Mm. It is a strange thing,” he said softly.
“It is tall, white—and at the top, it is surrounded by a very large, unusual structure. Looks like coral, or webbing. Forms a sphere. Sparkles quite prettily in the morning. It is known as a plumaret. It sucks up all the airborne detritus, the castoffs of the living land. Pollen. Ash. Dust. With these tiny things, much can be gleaned about the state of this realm. But it has to tell this to someone.” He undid the back collar of his suit and pulled it down. “That someone is me, of course.”
There, just below the nape of his neck, were several small, purple swellings: grafted, augmented flesh. These swellings were unusual in that they were slightly ribbed and had a set of tiny pinprick orifices across their nodules. I was reminded of the shells of sea creatures, crackling and porous.
“The plumaret plugs into me, you see,” Tauri said.
“And it feeds me all it knows of this world. And in that moment, I become this world. I taste of creation, and I am creation. I am Lacanthim.” He turned his face away.
“I am the pastures. I am the places that once brimmed with trees, before the cattle folk burned it down. And I am the flensing halls. And the mireponds, and fens, and all the waste they make. They are like a cancer, a sore in my brain. They grow each year. And when the winds are in the right direction, like today…” He plucked a bit of grass, tossed it high, watched it dance in the air.
“…I can’t escape them. We are far from the fens, but they are still with me.
They punish me so. The gentry bear it well, with all their gaudy finery and rings, but I am not so lucky. ”
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know.”
“Ohh, it’s not all bad.” He smiled wistfully. “I shall know more of this land than anyone else, and taste things no other mind or body could comprehend. Yet I wonder—how did that place today seem to you, Kol?”
I reviewed my memories: the sight of the reeking fens, and the pile of bones with legions of vermin scuttling through them.
“All of it was awful, sir,” I admitted. “But more than anything, it…seemed a waste.”
“How do you mean?”