Chapter 6 #2
It was a curious, awful sound, the air slipping between her cold lips.
Yet worst of all were her eyes: for her pale, icy gray eyes shook as she convulsed, rolling back into her head—yet not both at the same time, nor even in the same exact direction.
I was reminded of a genia from the old tales, possessing a child’s body and whispering secrets from the world behind the world, and how all who heard the words were driven mad.
Then her body went still, and she collapsed back into the pool of blood.
It took me a moment to collect myself. I was against the wall, I realized, with my back pressed to it, as if to get as far away from the dead girl as I could.
“So,” drawled Ana, “I take it that worked, Din?”
“M-ma’am,” I said hoarsely. “What…what was that?”
“I thought it would be quite clear,” she said. “The girl has the web in her. And so does Castus, I presume.” She sighed. “What a pity this is! It takes an interesting turn, yet fills me with dread. A question, now, Din…”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Though you met him only for a moment…do you trust this Princeps Seriv of the custodi?”
“S-Seriv?” I said. “I…Well. Yes.”
“Are you sure? You are a good judge of character, but we must be certain.”
“I believe so. He stood up to both families when blades were drawn and demanded peace. He seemed a decent sort.”
“Then go and fetch him. We must have an ally in this. He shall have to do.”
—
Like most drovers, Princeps Seriv’s preferred expression was a constant, skeptical squint.
Yet as I brought him to the chamber, introduced him to Ana—always an unsettling experience for anyone—and watched as she laid out her theory for him, his tanned, lined face went through an astonishing medley of reactions.
Many were so radical they caused his wrinkles to vanish entirely, revealing narrow, untanned stripes of pale skin about his eyes.
The worst, of course, was when Ana again performed her grisly little magic trick: playing a single high, faint note upon the shawm, and inducing another unearthly, whispering sigh from the corpse on the floor.
Seriv’s bowed legs sprang to life and, just as I had done, he pressed himself against the wall, trying to put as much distance between himself and the dead girl hissing on the floor as he could.
When she finally finished, he remained adhered to the fretvine wall and stared at the corpse with naked horror. “By…by hell!” he finally gasped.
“I agree,” said Ana. “My guess is that when the Apoths tested Castus’s blood, they checked for fever or grafts. They did not think to look for the web!”
“Nor should they have!” said Seriv, sweating. “The web works upon the field cats alone! I’ve…I’ve never heard of it jumping to a human!”
“But now it has, sir,” said Ana. “Yet I would not say ‘jump.’ This was no accident. This murder was arranged, in every possible manner. The behaviors of the perpetrator and victim were so very carefully planned.” She leaned forward, and her blindfolded face grew intense.
“Can you comprehend the implications of this, Princeps Seriv?”
Seriv blinked for a moment, then fumbled for his pipe—but he did not put it between his lips. He just turned it over and over in his hands, gazing at the girl’s body.
“This speaks to experience,” Ana continued. “To familiarity. In other words, sir…I doubt very much if it is the first instance.”
Seriv pulled his eyes from Zansay’s corpse to look at Ana. “What are you claiming, ma’am?”
“I claim nothing,” said Ana. “I have been here mere hours. But…I understand there has been much madness in this canton in the past years, and a great deal of it lethal—true? And it has singularly affected the Armenta clan—or, at least, that is what has been noticed so far. And today, young Castus Armenta was almost assuredly bound to hang. Strange, is it not?”
Seriv let out a slow sigh almost as unsettling as Zansay’s, then sank down the wall until he sat upon the floor.
“You perceive what I suggest, sir?” said Ana.
“You don’t know what this could do,” Seriv said softly.
“I’m afraid I rather do,” said Ana.
“No! You do not!” he said, suddenly angered.
“I spent hours today trying to keep these two families from killing one another! Bloodshed was just barely avoided! And that was when we had but the one body—and a Burav one at that! But to say now that the entire Armenta line has not foundered, but been eliminated…and to implicate him as a killer, ma’am! ”
There was a silence.
I glanced back and forth between the two. “I’m sorry—him? I was unaware we had a suspect.”
Ana extended a hand to Seriv. “Din lacks the background for this. But you, Princeps, appear to have already made the leap…”
Seriv’s face now lacquered with sweat. “I told you, Signum Kol,” he said, “that the Burav clan made a fortune from agrarian alterations.”
“Yes?” I said.
“But I did not identify the main one, for I didn’t think it pertinent!
” His mustache quivered. “The vast, vast majority of all the enormous wealth of the Buravs comes from their alterations done not to a bean or plant, but to a very unusual fungus. They did endless labor to render it harmless—but very useful…”
A chill swept across me. “Oh,” I murmured.
“Yes, sir,” said Seriv. “It was the Buravs who developed the guiding web. They are the folk who mastered using it to command the herds of drokha-cats to harvest the fields!” He wiped the sweat from his face and dried it on his shirt front, leaving a dark shadow of a hand on his heart.
“And it was not just any Burav. It was Burilis himself who achieved this! The father of that very dead girl there.”