Chapter 20
Commander Tauri and I entered the Green Drover and trudged up the stairs to Ana’s chambers together.
We moved in miserable silence: though the discovery of the “seam” in the forest had at first been astonishing, there had been no other discoveries, and the seam had ended some two leagues from the Burav estate, with no other hint of passage.
Sighing, I knocked three times at Ana’s door, waited for her to sing her permission to enter, and opened it.
Nearly instantly, Tauri and I were almost bowled over in a coughing fit.
The air pouring out of the chamber was saturated in spice and pepper oil, so much so that you couldn’t take the slightest breath without it assaulting your sinuses. I was pushed to tears, but Tauri seemed near to fainting and swiftly buckled his mask from the wood about his face.
“By hell!” I gasped, squinting through the tears. “Ma’am! What’s happened to your room?”
“Mm?” purred Ana’s voice. “Oh, nothing at all! Your sister is simply obliging me with a little repast, Din.”
I peered through the gloom of her chambers. Ana was sitting on the floor as she so often did. Before her was a wide serving tray, and upon that a massive, pale blue ceramic bowl that steamed enormously, so much so that the mai-lamp above her was beaded with moisture.
I covered my nose with the crook of my elbow and approached. The broth within the bowl was a bright, startling red and was filled with coils of pale, tuberous flesh. I watched, disgusted, as she fished out a particularly knotty tangle of tissue and slurped it up much as one might a noodle.
“What are you dining upon?” I asked, horrified.
“It’s anterifehdo,” said Fotia’s voice behind me. I turned to see her sitting in a chair in the corner, smiling idly. “Cow innards, stewed in an onion broth with danith seeds. It’s quite the delicacy here.”
“And rightly so,” said Ana, taking another monstrous, greasy slurp. “Very aromatic, very savory! Though I did ask the cook to add a little extra heat to mine. I am nigh to feeling a color in my cheeks—almost.”
Tauri stood at the door, staring at her with naked disgust. “I was unaware your palate was so…diverse, Dolabra.”
“Oh, I am hungry for all manner of things, Commander Tauri! Tastes, textures, and tales. Tell me—what did you all find in the glade of Gaddar? I am most curious to hear of that strange wood.”
Tauri glanced at Fotia. “I am unsure if we should do so with all present. This information is highly protected by the Orbiis. Few know it exists, let alone how it works.”
“But my guess is that our killer already knows both!” said Ana.
“And has for some time—perhaps even years. It is far, far less protected than you thought. We are at a disadvantage, sir, and besides, we’ve few allies here in Lacanthim, Commander.
The young Miss Kol here has volunteered to be useful for me. ”
I looked at Fotia. She avoided my gaze.
“Now!” said Ana. “Tell me what you found!”
—
Tauri dozed in the corner while I reported to Ana, alternating between sniffing my engraver’s vial and the mint kerchief I still had in my pocket.
I was keenly aware of Fotia’s faint horror as I spoke, regurgitating my experiences as if they were venom being drawn from my mind.
How strangely discouraging it was that out of all the awful things we’d witnessed in the past days, one of her strongest reactions came in response to my most commonplace duties.
“So,” said Ana softly at the end of it. “There is indeed more than one killer. Two at least, if not more—a veritable conspiracy. But I believe I am beginning to see a pattern here! For though our conspiracy works against both houses, at least two of its members are not wholly aligned! One owes something to the other—they once sought forgiveness, at least of a sort. The one who labored for forgiveness is the one with the most experience in the web and has tutored the other murderous soul in all its applications. Summed it all up in a nice tidy little booklet, like a child learning the fucking lyre.” She extended a hand, and I gave her the booklet to paw and parse.
“How quaint. And yet they must obviously despise one another, if they are leaving such poisonous notes for each other to find…”
“What do you think of that last tune listed, ma’am?” I said. “The one labeled lysis.”
“I’ve no idea. At a guess, I almost wonder if it purges the subject of the infection. For that’s what lysis is—a termination, a dissolution…I cannot say.” Another sip of broth. “Commander Tauri—have we found any other contaminated water sources?”
Tauri snorted awake. “Mm? Ohh. Ah, not yet. I spared a few of my folk to test the Armenta clan waters. They’ve orders to send a scribe-hawk to me immediately if any test positive. As I’ve not received any word, I’ll presume that thus far they’ve been spared…”
“So—we don’t know how, say, Castus Armenta got infected. Nor how in hell Ippeas Armenta is infected, whereas Miss Kol here is not? That especially confounds me, for I assume you and he tend to hang about one another, yes?”
“Yes,” said Fotia. “But we’ve each our own duties about the spreads. Ip is mostly a drover like me, but he does tend to family business on occasion. Though Velona still treats him as a servant.”
“Yet we have one individual most strongly implicated,” Ana growled. “For as the killer is using the web, and since they seem to be using these seams in the forest to get about, all that points to one man in particular…”
“Burilis Burav,” I sighed. “Yes.”
“Too bad the bastard’s dead!” snarled Ana. “We cannot interrogate a pile of ashes! I suppose he didn’t have any preferred agents, or servants, or kin who did his awful deeds for him?”
Fotia shook her head. “Burav was a controlling man, I was told. He let his family do no more than spend his money—which they were all quite content to do.”
“And, Commander Tauri, I presume you’ve made no headway with Burav’s vault?”
“My people are spread thinner as this investigation continues,” said Tauri. “So fewer and fewer can focus on the vault and the mansion. They did succeed in removing one segment of plating, however.”
“And?”
“Behind it was more plating. This bit much thicker.”
“By hell!” fumed Ana. “How I fucking hate riddles! And I can’t help but feel that Burav’s vault holds something very nasty.
Or dangerous. Or both! For I have become convinced that something is quite rotten in the Burav legacy…
” She fumbled behind her and pulled out a stack of parchments, her greasy fingers leaving behind a ghost of their prints.
“…and Burilis Burav’s service record with the Empire suggests I am right. ”
She cleared her throat, pressed her greasy digits to the parchment, and began to read.
—
“Burilis Burav!” she began. “Born in the year 1067, here in the canton of Sapirdad—born in that very house that burned down yesterday, in fact. At the time of his birth, the Burav gentryclan was estimated to be the 131st richest in all of the Empire, and thus possessed wealth and power that few common folk could ever imagine—and yet, in the eyes of the Burav clan, they were in a state of profound poverty. For some forty years previously, they had been the 64th wealthiest clan in the Empire. A steep drop, for them! And the cause of this drop is obvious.”
I glanced at Fotia, whose eyes remained fixed on the floor.
“The Armentas,” I said.
“Correct!” said Ana. “It was in 1019 that the Senate of the Sanctum passed the reforms that would come to be known as the Great Flourishing, allowing gentryclans and landowners increased access to Apoth reagents and alterations. The Armentas made great use of this and created cattle lines and herds with no peer in this world. They grew powerful and bought up nearly all the lands about the Burav spreads. They choked them out, suffocated them. By the time of Burilis Burav’s childhood, his family’s holdings were barely a tenth of what they’d owned at their height.
Thus, in 1080, the Buravs did the unthinkable—they placed young Burilis in the Imperial Iyalets and had him begin the process to become an Apoth at the tender age of twelve.
So great was their suffering, you see, that they had deigned to permit a prime son become a servant to the Empire!
What a cruel fate! How awful it must have been. Truly, I weep for them!”
Tauri yawned. I shot Ana a glare. “Your biases are known, ma’am,” I said. “We may skip the dramatics.”
“If you wish, Dinios,” she said. “But I highlight this turn of fate because I don’t quite think that they did it just for the income.
I believe they intended to use Burilis’s position as one of influence.
They had been undermined by the arts of the Apoths—thus, they planned to master them and use them to regain what had been lost.” She turned her head to Tauri.
“And how queer it is, sir, that Burilis Burav eventually transferred to the Orbiis! And, far stranger, the environment he was assigned to watch over was none other than the land of his birth! The very place where his family had lost so much valuable environment. That seems to be…well, quite a fucking conflict of interest, really!”
“It is much noted,” Tauri said dourly, “that the gentry wielded outsized influence in the Iyalets just after the Great Flourishing. Often to unwise ends. It was unquestionably a conflict of interest, one that would never be permitted today—but we’ve no evidence he ever acted directly to aid his family. ”
“Many thought as much,” said Ana. “But you yourself told Din that when Burav left the Orbiis, it was under a—what was it, Din?”
My eyes fluttered as I summoned the memory. “Under a cloud of suspicion and dislike, ma’am,” I said. I gave Tauri an apologetic glance.
“This was due to bureaucratic maneuvering,” said Tauri. “Or so I was told. I know only what is still said of him.”