Chapter 25 #3
“Perhaps!” mused Ana. “For the next three murders take a very different tack. They are not passionate or clumsy! They are careful. Precise. Very premeditated. And very targeted, toward one line in particular.”
“The Armentas,” said Seriv.
“Yes. Someone else picked up the web at that point, you see. I do not think Jalin is the one who killed Sagma and Gevma. He did not condition Castus Armenta, laboring away there in the flensing halls. But…I think he did indeed play the tune that killed his sister.”
“You think it was Jalin who crept through the wood that night,” I said, “and played those two tunes—one for Zansay, and one for Castus.”
“Yes. I think he was forced to do it by this second killer. But I suspect he did not know exactly what the effects would be. I think he was startled to discover Castus Armenta, bloodied and shrieking and rushing to the very same forest where he intended to slip back to his home. And when he heard the news the next day, he found that his tunes had not killed Castus, but his sister. He was then filled with tremendous misery and despair. The other killer surely expected this reaction. For recall, Din—you spied lights in the forest the night before the fire. A signal, a message, from this other player—saying what?”
“Calm, calm,” I said.
Tauri shifted uncomfortably. “Calm?”
“Yes,” purred Ana. “This second killer, the deadlier partner, was telling Jalin not to react. They knew Jalin was unstable. And they knew he would not react well to the Iudex arriving—and that he would especially not like it when we did not release his sister’s body.
Jalin then went home, where he definitely did not listen to this plea for calm.
For many reasons, but one chief of all—recall, this boy knew what was festering in his sister’s body!
And you and I, Din, delayed its release!
Jalin then knew Zansay’s corpse would fruit within days, if not hours.
And when that happened, all would be revealed, and many suspicious eyes would be fixed on the Burav family—and, eventually, Jalin himself. ”
“So he panicked,” I said. “Despaired. And he decided that the only way out was…fire?”
“Fire and death,” whispered Ana. “A great suicide, destroying his hated family in the process. He had, after all, begged them to step away from this terrific sin he believed they were committing. In response, they mocked him and treated him as a weakling.” She paused.
“And yet he did do something I cannot make sense of. In his despair, he struck out at his family, true…but why also try to kill Ippeas Armenta?”
“That’s right,” I said, realizing. “That doesn’t make sense. Ippeas had gotten a letter asking him to come there the night of the fire—one very strange and almost clumsy.”
“And one that, obviously, did not work,” said Ana. “Jalin wrote to him claiming that he had some information proving Castus’s innocence. But—why do it at all? Why target Ippeas Armenta, of all people?”
“Unless Jalin wished to kill all the Armentas,” said Tauri with a shrug.
“But Ippeas won’t inherit!” said Ana impatiently. “What, was killing the man just a spiteful bonus? It makes no sense!”
“Jalin Burav was an unstable creature, ma’am,” I ventured. “Perhaps little of what he did makes sense.”
“I cannot help but feel that is not so!” she said.
“But…you are right, somewhat. I certainly don’t think Jalin was truly ready to hear his own family scream.
To scream, I imagine, much like the cattle do before the flensing halls.
For Jalin forgot that one servant had not sipped enough from the Buravs’ poisoned well—and when he heard this person crying out, he returned, startled, and was forced to contend with the immensity of what he had set in motion. ”
“He tried to save his father, then,” said Seriv, “but it was too late.”
“He had written his commands into his father’s soul,” she said simply, “just like his father has written commands into all the creature servants of the Empire. They cannot be defied. Burilis could not, and perished. Jalin, panicking, despairing, leapt from the window, his body burned and nearly broken. He awoke in his healing bath and was keenly aware that this other killer was out there, still hidden, still murderous—and now they had a very good reason to see Jalin eliminated.” She turned a page.
“So you see, boys…I do not think Jalin fled into the forest for some mystical, divine purpose. I believe he did it out of fear, for simple survival. He is a killer driven by rashness. The other, however…they are quite a different thing.”
—
Tauri sighed. “It is all very chilling to hear these speculations of frost-hearted killers prowling about Lacanthim, but I doubt if Jalin left a list of co-conspirators lying about. Nor did he sketch out a map of where he might have been going in that accursed wood! For I somewhat doubt if he is headed…” He hazarded a glance out of the vault to confirm we were alone.
“…to the Touched Site within. Unless he has a few dozen bombard charges in his pockets, he’s not getting through that massive stone plug—and even that might not do it. ”
“No list, no, no,” murmured Ana. “But as for leaving a map for us…perhaps.”
I moved forward to peer over her shoulder. She appeared to be reading an illuminated manuscript with writing so flowery and exaggerated my eyes couldn’t make sense of it. “You truly think he left a map, ma’am?” I said dubiously.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I think there was a map kept here, once. One made by Burilis Burav himself, who knew more of the altered forest than anyone, after his many years managing it. I’ve no doubt Jalin took it to delve into those strange leaves.
But though it is lost to us, we can re-create it!
” She flicked a hand at the shelves. “Burav selected these books most carefully, you see, and excised specific pages for focused study. And all of them—all—are about the shrines of the Daljen.” She carefully laid one page aside and began on the next.
“What they were for. Which exalted figure was granted administration over them. And, most of all, where they were.”
“But why?” said Tauri. “What did he seek?”
“Unsure!” said Ana. “There is no mention of the guiding web in these pages. No talk of fungi or pipes or such. But then, I have only just begun reading them.” She turned her blindfolded head very slightly toward him.
“I am aware that a spatiast’s mind is skilled at creating many maps.
If you can make one now of what you know of the forest, perhaps I can cross-reference the text of these musty tomes and tell you where to seek Jalin Burav. ”
Tauri winced. “We…do not maintain detailed maps of the wood. We can’t risk anyone else learning how to traverse it and come to the Touched Site.”
“Then you will never find Jalin Burav in that forest. Nor will you ever come to comprehend what he and his father likely found there, too.”
Tauri glared at her.
“I need only the basics, sir,” she said, grinning. “Landscapes. Entry points. Surrounding creeks! All that dull shit, you see.”
Grumbling, Tauri walked to one of the Orbiis carriages stationed in the gravel path and returned with a large, blank sheet of parchment.
Then he sat next to Ana, and with quick, precise strokes of his ashpen, he re-created a map of the altered forest in but a handful of seconds, complete with a little scale in the bottom right to denote how a smallspan translated into leagues.
“There,” he said. “I have most of it, I think.”
Ana snatched it up and began to follow the lines of his ashpen with her fingers. “Remarkably precise!” she said. “Or so I assume. I myself have never actually seen any of it, of course. Where did Jalin enter?”
Tauri pointed to one spot that lay close to the Burav lands. “There. The trackers are quite sure of it. They catch the scents of the healing bath most keenly.”
“Good.” Ana pointed at me with a finger. “Din—how many books are in here with us?”
I rapidly counted my memories, my eyes shimmering. “A hundred and seven, ma’am.”
“Good. How many of those are real thickies?”
“I am unsure what size a book must be to qualify as a real thickie, ma’am. But sixteen of them are pretty hefty, to my eye.”
She raised her blindfolded head and appeared to do some quick math. “Give me until dawn,” she said. “I think I can determine where Jalin was going by then.”
Tauri pushed a veil of gold hair behind one ear and studied her with a wary eye. “Truly?”
“Yes. Probably. Maybe! I can at least give you an idea of which shrines and locations Burav researched most. One of those, surely, is the site of his fascination—and thus the location where Jalin Burav might be now.”
“Uhh—and then what, ma’am?” said Seriv. “You’re going to send the Orbiis charging in after him?”
“I had assumed so!” she said with a sniff. “Them, and Din. He’s already been in the damned forest, after all.”
My face tightened to hear this duty so fecklessly assigned to me, but I kept my mouth shut.
“But it’s not so simple as that,” said Tauri. “Not if we don’t even know where we’re going. I mean—do we even know how deep we shall venture?”
“I don’t, sir!” said Ana. “Have you gone exploring in the wood much?”
“The wood is no child’s garden for us to idly wander.”
“Then I can’t say!” said Ana. “We now trouble ourselves with unspeakable things. Both because we fear them, and because we do not know them—because the Khanum did not want us to. They destroyed all knowledge of what lies in those trees centuries ago. But from Burav’s own fascination with Master Gaddar, and the sheer breadth of materials here…
yes, I think you shall be going quite deep!
To the very heart of the Daljen dynasty, perhaps.
And what you find there, I cannot imagine.
” She licked a finger and turned yet another page.
“But give me a little fucking time to read, and maybe I can tell you.”