Chapter 34
Tauri and I sat in gloomy silence as the carriage rumbled north across the pastures of Lacanthim.
This was hardly unusual, as gloom and silence had swept across all the canton in the days since Trikao’s unmasking.
Everyone in the cattle industry, from top drover to the trough-mops of the flensing halls, now felt deeply uncertain about what the future held: in but a week, both of the great families of the cattle industry had been overthrown, and all was thrown into chaos.
Even Ana now seemed affected: though she often appeared utterly indifferent to the suffering of others, some doleful air stole over her as we rolled on toward the wood, and she bobbed and nodded and rocked not at all.
But I had found some oasis in Tauri in the past days.
It was forbidden for officers to have liaisons within their own Iyalet, but dalliances between the orders were often scrupulously ignored.
As we’d all gone about clearing up the vast wreckage that Jalin Burav and Trikao Armenta had left behind—cleansing the wells of web, and finally administering the Apoths’ cures to the infected, as awful and horrid they were—I had found succor in my handful of moments with him, consuming his strange teas and concoctions in his bed chambers, smiling idly and listening to his banter as the world of Lacanthim streamed on outside his window and my skull cleared of fungus.
Though a voice had spoken within me—not my memories, merely my experience—whispering: These things never last.
To which I had responded: Nothing does.
We shared a small smile as our carriage rolled on, but even that faded in the face of the task before us.
Tauri cleared his throat. “So. Where are we bound, Dolabra? Besides the wood, I mean.”
“Mm?” said Ana, distracted. “Ah, yes. Well! Recall that when you first tracked Jalin Burav through the altered forest, you found him at an old, crumbling fountain within the Daljen ruins—one that had been dry for centuries.”
“True. I tested it thoroughly but could find no hint of moisture—nor the web.”
“Of course. But recall that you also found pickaxes, shovels, and other such tools in Burilis Burav’s crude laboratory! I believe he dug to find the web.”
“So I assumed. But we did not see any sign of excavation about us.” He narrowed his eyes. “You think you know where he dug, then?”
“I do. I believe if you return to the fountain, and proceed directly north-northeast from it, you shall find the site.”
“And how are you so sure?” asked Tauri.
“A guess, sir,” said Ana. “But a very educated one. And one I think shall lead to many truths.”
Tauri frowned but seemed to accept that answer.
“What will you do while we seek these truths, ma’am?” I asked. “Will you just wait in the carriage?”
“Well, I certainly don’t intend to join you on the expedition, boys. Rather, I was hoping you could drop me off at the shrine of Master Gaddar. It is a bit out of the way, but I can wait for you there—and reflect upon all that has occurred in this place.”
Tauri appeared to struggle with exasperation at Ana’s oddities but then sighed and smiled at me. I cannot exactly cast stones when it comes to eccentricities, he had commented to me the night before. So I shall bear her. And you, I suppose.
I smiled in return. Though I, much like the drovers of this region, did not know what the future held, I took comfort in knowing what pleasures the next few days held.
My contentment dimmed as we came to the path leading to the shrine of Master Gaddar.
Few pilgrims walked the shadowy steps now: perhaps the complicity and demise of the Armentas, most devout of all the Daljen-keepers, had doused the faith of others.
To see Ana enter the altered forest, the way ahead so empty, the trees shivering in the wind, put an unpleasant chill in my bones.
“Are you sure you don’t wish me to accompany you, ma’am?” I said, sliding an Orbiis mask upon my face. “I can help you to a seat.”
“I can get about well enough by listening,” she said, waving a hand at me.
“If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to put that lance in Trikao’s back!
And I can manage the airs of this place.
They do not offend my soul as they do for so many.
Go, and report to me all the revelations you may find, boy. ”
There was something stiff to her face now. A careful, guarded sorrow, like someone awaiting a medikker’s pessimistic opinions of a loved one’s illness.
“You know what’s in those woods, ma’am,” I said.
“Ohh? Do I?”
“Yes. So why not just tell me?”
“Because he needs to see it,” she said. “As do you.” She began to walk down the path and waved a hand about her.
“Yet I shall tell you—it is a tomb, Din. But then, all the Empire is a tomb, and all of history. So much age, so much death. We live within tombs, within tombs, within tombs. The question is—how to find our way out?”
—
The seam was no less unnerving than it had been the last time, even though on this foray we were at least somewhat certain the path ahead bore no combatants.
Tauri led the way, thurible held high like a midnight adventurer peering into the mist. I kept my eyes fixed on his golden tresses, and tried to ignore the trembling of the leaves, the crackling of the branches, and most of all the strange, fractal angles of the pale boles.
Something Tauri had said weighed heavily in my mind now: A strange thing, to be adrift in a creation wrought by a mind you cannot comprehend! It’s like studying a tapestry, and attempting to imagine the loom that made it, only for it to defy you.
My thoughts lingered on those words. So often the imperial past defied us. What would happen if, today, it did not, and welcomed us into its embrace?
After many leagues of trees and ruins and strange statues in the leaves, we returned to the fountain.
Jalin Burav’s body still lay beside it, though now it moldered—yet not as swiftly as a corpse would in other environs.
Perhaps the altered forest warded away more common rots.
I spoke a prayer for him, and we continued north-northeast.
Just as Ana had said, within a half league we came to a large aperture dug in the ground, with a wooden ladder leading into its depths. We both stared at it as if it might leap up at us like an adder.
“It was here,” mused Tauri. “Just behind the bend of the hill! If we’d gone wandering, we’d surely have tripped on it.”
“Shall we climb down, sir?”
He made a move to do so, then paused and looked north-northeast. “This…this place. Is it coincidence?”
“Pardon?”
“Well, Din…if you were to draw a line straight from the well to the Touched Site, it…it would go right through here.”
There was a silence.
“Do we wish to continue?” I asked.
Tauri did not answer. He removed his half mask, slid on his warding helm, and fixed it atop his head. Then he raised his mai-lantern, stooped low, and climbed in. I put on my own warding helm and followed.
—
The tunnel was cramped and moist, so much so that soon my brow dripped with sweat and my shirt stuck to my back and chest. Worse was the ignorance of what was ahead: with Tauri climbing through before me, I could only see the flashing of his mai-lamp, the ribbed walls of the tunnel, and little else.
“Where are we going?” I whispered to Tauri. “You’ve a map in your mind, true?”
“Yes,” Tauri said reluctantly. “But I hope I am wrong.”
“Why?”
“Because…we are still bound north-northeast. This tunnel fed the fountain back there, once. I believe it caved in somewhere behind us, blocking its flow. But where it leads…” He shifted in the dark. “I think it shall take us to the Touched Site.”
“We’re going into that black plug in the ground? It’s madness to go there, surely?”
“Yes, but…Burilis Burav went there once, I think. And he lived. It must be safe. I can’t say—and won’t try to now. This darkness seems to demand quiet of me.”
I did not know how long we crawled and climbed and crept through the tunnel. For many leagues, perhaps dozens. Yet then Tauri slowed and sighed with awe. I heard him whisper, “It ends! But…but could it…”
He stepped forward, out into some greater space. I followed and squinted through the glass bulbs of my warding helm as he raised his mai-lantern.
A dark underground lake stretched out before us, easily two leagues in breadth.
There was no sign of light other than the lamp in Tauri’s hand.
I looked up and could barely make out stone statues arrayed above us, like holy beings keeping watch over sacred waters.
Many bore cups; others, ewers, or ladles, or bowls.
Their faces were obscured by dust and loose soil, and many were half submerged in the detritus of some old collapse above.
I could not comprehend who could have made them, or why these sculptors had ever come to this place.
My skin crawled, and a mad thought wormed into my mind: This was to be left for shadow, and no more.
Tauri pointed down. “The waters move.”
I looked and saw he was right: there was a ripple in the water, a faint swirling, as if something shifted about in them.
“Why do they move?” asked Tauri. “Are they fed by a stream? Or is something within it?”
We stepped back, worried some horrid creature might rise up and attack us—for, like all good imperials, we feared deep waters most of all. Yet none came, and the rhythm of the rippling continued, as if this lake was fed by a stream dribbling into the far end.
Tauri reached into his pack, pulled out a strip of treated parchment, and dipped it into the waters.
Instantly, it turned orange.
We looked at each other, breathing hard in our helms.
“I must know more,” he said in a strangled voice.
“We know where it came from,” I said. “Is that not enough?”
“No. I must know. I have suspicions, but I…I must know, Din.” He took his lantern and began to walk about the stone rim of the lake.