Chapter 22
The entryway of the Lacanthim jail cell was a terrible place to do a debriefing, not least of all because I had recently changed out of my bloodied uniform and into a standard prisoner’s uniform—though I had taken the measure of pinning my Iudex heralds to my chest. Tauri and his team were laboring in the jail’s passageways, removing Castus’s remains and administering reagents to sterilize whatever spores the fungal stalks had spread about.
To my right, Trikao Armenta, Ippeas Armenta, and Fotia sat trembling, their faces as pale as candle wax in the dull light of the mai-lamp.
I took care to ensure that my report didn’t needlessly upset them.
“So,” said Ana softly at the end of it. “Our killer has a tune that can cause any infected skull to…erupt.”
“That is my assessment, ma’am,” I said, exhausted.
“How intriguing!” she said.
Trikao flinched. He no doubt had a word for this development, and it was not intriguing.
“I presume this feature of the fungus is not found in the domesticated web,” said Ana.
“And I note that it didn’t seem to care one fucking fig about the restraining treatments we’d given the boy!
I suppose that the medication, which does wonders for keeping the fungus curtailed in the cats, does nothing against this third breed.
Yet there is a stranger detail about it—for despite the catastrophic trauma to Castus’s skull, his body was forced to still act out the behavior he’d been conditioned for!
He continued to be its servant even after death!
You saw it yourself, Din, as he kept trying to gut you as he did countless cows, not to mention Zansay Burav. ”
“I did, yes,” I sighed. “He was compelled to keep slashing at me, no matter how I harmed him.”
“An astonishing thing,” said Ana. “The killer not only brought about the boy’s end, but they also made him a soldier in living death! Imagine how useful such an abomination might be—servants and warriors who shamble on, forever obeying the last command ringing in their ears…”
Trikao made a soft moan.
“Please,” said Ippeas. “Can we please discuss something else?”
“Certainly!” said Ana. “We should move on from how this unprecedented, dangerous breed of the guiding web engineered the deaths of Zansay Burav and young Castus—and instead discuss how it likely killed your three cousins! Your son knows this, Master Armenta, but I believe this shall come as something of a shock for you…”
Ana then launched into a very brief—yet quite tactless—summary of our discovery of the guiding web: how it infected, conditioned, and controlled people.
“You think this is what was done to my niece and nephews?” whispered Trikao, trembling.
“I do,” said Ana. “And here I wish to ask you a rather crass question, sir. Am I correct in recalling that the Armentas preserve their dead?”
“Y…yes?” said Trikao.
“Stored in a sepulcher? Washed and treated so their bodies will resist all pestilence?”
“Yes, of course. We have long held the belief that there shall come a time when the arts of the Apoths grow so great they can even bring back the dead.”
“Well. This would suggest, then, that the three dead Armenta children are stored in some family sepulcher more or less in the exact same conditions as their deaths.”
A chill swept through my rib cage.
“Oh, hell,” I muttered.
“I have hesitated a great while in voicing this request, sir,” said Ana, “for I couldn’t imagine any circumstances in which you’d accept it.
Yet I suspect the stakes of this new strain of infection are now abundantly clear to you.
This killer has killed among your clan and threatens you and all you love!
As such, I ask your permission to exhume the bodies of Lyimo, Sagma, and Gevma Armenta.
We must study them for any evidence that could lead us to this murderer. ”
There was a horrified silence.
“You…you wish to open the tombs of my nephews, my niece?” asked Trikao. “But…to despoil them would threaten their resurrection!”
“If they were infected, sir, then I worry there will be no resurrection, for they will be no longer whole. They would have fruited, so to speak, within their tombs.”
“By hell! I…I have never imagined such a wicked thing, not in all my years! Do you truly ask me this?”
“I do,” said Ana coldly. “We are far behind our enemies now. We must study all their past works to catch up.”
Trikao shut his eyes and was silent for a long, long while. “I have never seen such a horror as what was done to Castus,” he whispered. “Did they hope that Castus might kill my son?”
“Perhaps. I suspect the same horrific phenomena didn’t also occur to Ippeas solely because the boy isn’t conditioned—but that is no sure thing.”
“And you think that there may be some clue within the tombs of my dead nephews and niece.”
“I hope there is, sir.”
He took a deep breath. “Then I will permit you to do so.”
“You will, Father?” said Ippeas. “Don’t you need Velona’s approval?”
“I am seneschal,” he said heavily. “I manage the family’s business—and I protect the family.
My sister can dismiss me or banish me for making the wrong decision as I attempt to fulfill that duty.
But after what I saw, I can do nothing else.
I will see justice done to those who inflicted this on my kin.
” He reached over and squeezed his son’s hand.
“And I…I will let no other perish that way.”
The two of them exchanged a wordless moment, father and son gazing at each other.
“How touching,” said Ana. She banged on the wall. “Commander Tauri! Might you bless us with your presence?”
There was a shuffling from the cell corridors.
Tauri emerged, bound yet again in a warding suit, his eyes gazing blearily at Ana from behind the glass.
“We are in the midst of dealing with the remains, Dolabra. I doubt if any have been infected, given that the fungus must mature in water first, but our work is still critical.”
“I’ve other tasks to put you to,” said Ana, “dealing with other remains.” She then explained the request she’d just put to Trikao Armenta.
Tauri leaned against the wall, plainly exhausted, and removed his warding helm. “Grave robbing,” he muttered. “How lovely. After this and vault breaking, I feel you shall put me to murder and treachery soon enough.”
“When would be a good time for us to visit your sepulcher, Master Armenta?” Ana asked Trikao.
He swallowed. “T-tomorrow morning. As early as you wish. I…I wish to see this done quickly.”
“Very good. Take Din with you for this, Commander, and grant him the proper protections. He shall engrave all you witness. I believe the Armenta sepulcher is positioned in the southwest of their lands…?”
Tauri nodded, then froze. A look of great dread stole over him. “Ahh. The sepulcher is located to the south of Aimafall?”
“Well. Yes? I believe that’s what I just said.”
“Tomorrow the winds will be coming from the north, though.”
“So?” demanded Ana.
Tauri opened his mouth. Then he shut it, nodded, and said, “I will prepare to depart, then,” and swiftly walked away.
—
I guided Ana back to the Green Drover just as dawn began to bleed through the eastern skies. She was so lost in contemplation that I didn’t dare speak once, even though the past hours had put many thoughts in my mind.
“I feel as if we are on the cusp of progress now, Din,” she muttered. “But the day has been so long and so mad, I can’t quite tell!”
I agreed, my thoughts lingering on Tauri’s sudden, strange reluctance to venture to the sepulcher.
“I know I can make little progress with Burav’s vault,” she continued.
“I can’t begin to imagine which one of the fucking 810,000 combinations could possibly satisfy it!
And I’ve no idea what the bastard meant by putting Brilliance is forever fecund at the top of his idiotic little door.
I swear, it is as if he mocks us from the beyond!
” She raised a finger. “Though I did mean to ask Tauri about one of the symbols on the tumblers. I am sure the numeral 1 is all wrong! In conventional imperial standard numerology, you see, the digit 1 has a serif at the top and a horizontal line at the bottom. This lacks both—it is just a simple vertical line!”
“Ahh. So?”
“Well! The 7 as depicted upon the tumbler still has the standard slanted line at the top left tip! And the 4 also has a little swishy bit at the end of its horizontal stroke—also common to imperial standard! And yet!” she said, viciously triumphant.
“The digit 1 on the tumblers is totally nude! It is a bare one!”
I found myself too tired to attempt to hide my exhaustion. “Ma’am—what does that mean?”
“I’ve no idea! Why would Burav choose such a depiction of the numeral for his door? It frustrates me.” She paused before the tavern’s door, her blindfolded head turned to the misty, muddy streets. “But I admit, I am not surprised that you saw no pipe-player about the jail, Din.”
“No?”
“No. Recall now the note at the bottom of the tune for LYSIS.”
I nodded glumly. “Yes. Not immediate.”
“Indeed! The catalyzation of the fungus must take time. One could play it, and the victim wouldn’t die for minutes, or even hours. So I must ask—did you see the movements of Commander Tauri after he left my chambers?”
I paused. “No, ma’am. Why? Do you truly worry about him, of all people?”
“He knows more of the web than anyone save the dead Burav. And he has often voiced a hatred of the cattle trade. So yes. I worry about him. But…” She sighed.
“The tune could have been played by anyone hanging about the jail at any time before we came. It all galls me terribly! Why go out of your way to kill Castus? Hadn’t he been destroyed enough?
What gain is there, save simple vindictiveness?
” She turned her blindfolded head to me.
“Regardless, Din…I would advise against getting…involved with Commander Tauri.”
I looked at her sidelong. “I would not get involved with an officer in an ongoing investigation, ma’am.”
“That is not quite what I meant. You should not get involved with him at any time. Tauri is too important, and too clever. Such people see quite a lot. Even through your oft-expressionless face, Din. And don’t we have our own secrets to protect?”
I said nothing. I felt sweat crawling across my belly in the damp.
“Good night, Din,” Ana said, and climbed the stairs to her chambers.