Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-two
There is divinity in every bone, every pad of fatted flesh, every drop of blood. One must only know how to extract it.
—AUTHOR UNKNOWN
DESPITE THE PRESS OF time, I wait until evening falls to make my way to the outer edge of Sethane.
A single rutted road winds down and away from the city, strewn with debris.
Eventually, I catch a whiff of something foul in the air and reach a wide, rectangular pit.
There’s enough starlight to see shattered crockery, splintered furniture, and what appears to be a dead ox, ribs exposed by scavengers and rot.
I trace a path around the dumping ground, having had my fill of pits lately.
Of more interest are the remains of the buildings a short distance past it.
Right away, I see that the cleric was telling the truth: There is little left here but broken walls tracing the shapes of what structures used to stand, along with the occasional intact chimney, cold and lifeless as tombs.
Which makes it an excellent place for privacy.
I creep through the ruins, shadow silent, listening for any other signs of life.
Unlike Novena, there are the usual skitters of rats, the call of an owl on its night hunt.
But nothing else. Frustration begins to bloom, the aching fear that I’m wrong, that I’ve lost the Renderers, Nolan, and any chance of tracking down the heretics, when the wind suddenly shifts.
I hear something: a nicker, faint, but nearby.
I follow it, making my way around the remains of some sort of outbuilding.
It appears to be caved in, but I find a hole in the stone, catching the faint smell of horses from it.
Cautious, I slip through into utter darkness, but a quiet whinny greets me. And it sounds familiar.
Risking the light, I call the flame, just enough of it to illuminate the chamber I’ve found myself in. The first thing I spot is a horse.
“Mortimer!” Buttons is there too, and a few other mounts, along with the Renderers’ wagon. There’s a section of wood roofing covering another gap beyond it. It’s arranged well enough that I would never have thought to search within, if not for Mortimer’s tip-off.
“Good horse,” I whisper again, giving him a pat. But there’s no time for a proper reunion. As cunning as this makeshift stable is, there’s no sign of the Renderers, or Nolan.
But they must be close.
I make my way out and examine the nearby structures.
The remains of more outbuildings, for the most part, but there’s a larger structure too, what must be one of the old refineries given the wide, round chimney rising from it.
I press myself into a shadowed juncture of walls and listen again.
My sickles, in their bindings, press back with a heartening firmness.
I unsheathe one, careful not to let the blade flash.
There are no sounds of movement from within.
Entering through the remains of a doorway, I find a floor half rotted away, but there’s a series of stone stairs that lead down.
At their bottom is a low-ceilinged cellar, strewn with the rotten piles of what might be ancient crates and a few lonely spiderwebs.
As in the city, a thin layer of soot coats everything here.
Except the floor.
I examine the slate: nearly spotless, as if it has been swept lately.
Which doesn’t exactly make sense… unless someone wants to ensure that there isn’t anything incriminating like, oh, footprints left behind.
It doesn’t take me long to find the faint scratches on the floor, right near the sunken base of the chimney.
I feel along it until one of the stones gives way beneath my fingers.
There’s a soft thunk, followed by a door swinging open on a hidden hinge, revealing a winding staircase leading down.
Success.
The passage is narrow enough that I’m forced to sheathe my sickle again.
What little light there is filters up from below, and I keep a keen ear out for movement.
Getting caught on these stairs would make for a tricky fight, one I don’t need the challenge of.
But I meet no one, and the stairs spill out into a wider tunnel that looks much older than the structure above.
Part of the mines? Secret passages used by the followers of the Stone God?
There’s no ornament to tell me any stories, only a long stretch of tunnel reinforced with wood beams, and the occasional oil lamp.
I reach a split in the passage. Without a clue to what either branch holds, I choose left and follow it until I reach a dead end with three wooden doors.
Again, not a single marking to indicate what might be behind them, but there are small portals with a sliding cover set into each.
I go to the middle one and, quietly as I can, slide it open.
Inside, there’s nothing, only an empty stone room with a single, ominous iron ring set into the wall. Still curious, I try another.
This cell is not empty. A body is folded into a pitiable ball against the back wall, metal chain rising from it and fastened to the same iron ring I saw in the last cell.
Immediately, I know what sort of person the Renderers might keep caged here.
But the body is not Nolan’s; it’s too slight, and the sheen of skin darker complexioned than his.
“Prior Fedic?” I whisper. They stir. “Prior Fedic, wake up. I—”
A head snaps up suddenly, eyes wide and glassy, with a stare that hits me like a blow. Bruised, bloody… the person jumps up and lunges at the door with a snarl that no longer sounds human.
“Chooosssss—” The chain runs out and they snap back, seemingly having forgotten their binding. They lunge at me again and again with a low moaning sound that can’t quite form into the judgement they’re trying to make.
Chosen.
I snap the viewport shut, fearful of the noise. But the stone is thick and heavy here, and though I wait for a long minute, there are no sounds of anyone approaching to investigate. Only the faint sounds of the “hound” in their cell, scratching and scrabbling, but those, too, soon quiet.
I loosen, a sick feeling rising in my stomach.
What did they do to these people to make them like this?
I look at the doors. And how many do they have?
A quick check finds the third cell equally occupied.
The dead man near Novena must have called the empty one home.
A shudder runs through me, though not from the chill of the earth.
Nolan and I thought ourselves safe in our assumed identities when we first set out.
But now? Knowing my divinity can be outed so easily doesn’t exactly sit well.
There’s only one consolation: a marked difference between the man in the woods—who still sounded mostly human—and my new friend in the cell.
Whatever is done to them to be able to pick Chosen out, it appears to degrade them over time.
Just like Emmaus, if slower, and less extreme.
Is it linked to divine power somehow? From what I’ve seen of both the pure methods of divine infusion and the tainted sort, it seems likely.
I retrace my steps and take the right fork.
This branch continues for longer, but soon I come to another turn and another hall, at the end of which sits a large metal door with a barred window.
Faint sounds drift from it. I creep down the passage, move to the window, and peek in.
Immediately, I spot Nolan, gagged and lashed with chains to a table in the center of the room.
The table is tipped up so that he’s nearly upright, an ominous drain at its foot.
At first, I think he’s dead, but then the foolish thought disperses—who would gag a corpse?
—and I see a steady rise and fall of his chest. He even appears to be awake, eyes open and filled with thoughtful intensity.
Clearly still trying to figure a way out of a doomed situation—leave it to Nolan to never give up.
Considering his surroundings, I’m pretty sure I would have.
Two things there are a lot of in the chamber: knives and jars.
Knives with serrated edges, knives with smooth blades.
Tiny blades for precision work. Cleavers.
Jars full of strange liquids and jars full of…
pieces. My stomach turns. I also recognize items a chemist might use, tools more likely found in a butcher’s, and other things I cannot begin to place, only glean their grim use from context.
In the midst of all this horror is a tall woman, strong armed but fair featured, with her hair tied back and a heavy leather apron that’s splattered with telling stains.
She stands at a worktable that runs along the wall opposite the door, humming as she fiddles with some bubbling concoction, checking an open book at her side.
As I watch, she adds a drop of something, then a healthy measure of something else.
With each addition the humming swells. The cooks back at the Cloister kitchens used to do that—hum, sing, gossip among themselves as they worked.
I suppose this Renderer is as much a cook as any of them.
I move to the other side of the window, making sure the woman is alone.
I’ll need to move fast to surprise her, which means I have to hope she’s had no reason to lock the door.
I unsheathe one of my sickles, keeping the other hand free.
Open the door, throw a sickle, silence the cook.
That’s the plan. Inside, the woman has moved on to a vat bubbling on a brazier.
She takes a handful of what looks like wet entrails and tosses them in.
The mixture bubbles and burps, giving off a noxious odor that reaches me, strong enough that I flinch away from the window.
It saves my life.