Chapter 36 Mullayne
Mullayne
Langzu – the den northeast of Bian
Very few mortals have ever been to Unterra, though all describe a strange area between the last aerocline and emergence into the land of the gods. “The place of floating”, they call it, where even those without wings can fly.
Mull wasn’t built for subterfuge. He’d thought it clever, asking to use the latrine ditch and then sneaking off somewhere else. And maybe it was. But what he hadn’t thought through was what to say if he was caught.
So something of the truth slipped out of his mouth. “I was looking for something.”
The godkiller who stood before him was one of the most intimidating women he’d ever seen.
She was a full head taller than he was, her dark eyes narrowed in suspicion, her hands ending in claws.
One horn curved up and around the side of her head.
Her long black hair hung around a wound on the other side, where her other horn should have been.
It wasn’t bleeding anymore, but the skin there was pink and scabbed.
She didn’t give any indication that the wound caused her pain.
There was a stain on the skirt of her robe, one that looked like old blood.
“You were looking for something. It does not appear to be the latrine ditch.” Her voice was a low hum, thick with menace.
He swallowed, almost expecting her hand to lash out, to seize him by the front of his convert’s robe.
It took him the longest moment to realize she wasn’t holding a staff or a knife at his throat, but…
a crutch? He tried to move away from the wall, to obscure what he’d actually been doing.
But he still wasn’t used to the strange strength of his limbs, their unfamiliar shapes. He stumbled over a stone.
The godkiller caught him by his forearm with her free hand, setting him back on his feet.
He really had thought he was going to saunter into this den and it would give up its secrets to him, just like that? “I’m not used to this body,” he found himself saying. “I haven’t been in it for very long.”
Her narrowed eyes softened, the set of her mouth a little less harsh.
She made sure he was steady before she let go and then leaned back on her crutch.
“I remember what it was like, being newly altered. Everything was strange. You’ll get used to it.
” She sighed, some frustration she didn’t see fit to share.
“What are you doing out here? You’re meant to be tending to the books. And don’t tell me you got lost.”
There wasn’t really any plausible story he could tell, was there?
Maybe it didn’t matter. Surely the godkillers had a pittance of curiosity in them, didn’t they?
Didn’t everyone? He pointed uselessly at the carvings on the wall.
“They say things. They’re leading somewhere.
I used to be a scholar.” It was enough of the truth to explain his presence down here.
The whole den was littered with these carvings.
It had been easy to find one outside the archives.
Some of them spouted what seemed to be complete nonsense.
Children’s rhymes. Some of them gave a tantalizing insight into the world of Unterra – a description of some lush plant, or some strange animal.
But each of them included instructions at the end that led him to another carving.
They’d been leading him deeper down, into parts of the caves he was sure the converts weren’t supposed to go. What lay at the end of these instructions? The tomb, he hoped.
She took the lantern from his hand, held it up to the engraving, and squinted. “Can you… read that?”
“It’s Old Albanoran. I learned it later in life, but I’d already learned Albanoran, so it wasn’t too hard to pick up.
There was a pretty big leap between Old Albanoran and Albanoran, occurring sometime close to the Shattering, which makes sense – it was an upheaval for everyone, and those tend to have a strong effect on the ambient culture. ”
She didn’t take her gaze away from the carvings. “And are those and Langzuan the only languages you know?”
He opened his mouth to respond, and then remembered, at the very last moment, that he wasn’t supposed to be Mullayne Reisun, scholar, inventor, noble. “Well, I… I think that’s quite a lot of languages.”
She whirled on him, seizing his wrist, her face close to his, her sharp teeth bared. “I just spoke to you in Kashani, and you answered in it too. You were a prisoner, a murderer, the lowest of the low. Where did you get an education?”
He’d done it now. Perhaps instead of taking lessons in languages, he should have begged a lesson or two from Sheuan in subtlety.
She was always pretending to be someone else, and here he was, unable to pretend to be anyone but himself – and that wasn’t what he needed right now.
“I was a noble.” It was the only answer he could think of. “Nobles can still be murderers.”
Her grip didn’t loosen even marginally. “You think I don’t know enough about your country to know that nobles who commit crimes get their heads cut off?
They wouldn’t have thrown you into a wagon to take to the barrier.
” She made a small sound of disgust, as though she couldn’t believe he’d given himself away so easily. “Come with me.”
He didn’t exactly have a choice, as she hadn’t let go of his wrist. She handed the lantern back to him and began to limp up the tunnel, pulling him behind her. Even with her apparent injuries, he felt like a wayward cub, being dragged back into shelter.
How did Sheuan always seem to get along with everyone she met? “What’s your name?” he asked. Surely there was a more elegant way to introduce yourself to someone, but if there was, he didn’t know it. And it probably didn’t involve one of the parties hauling the other around by the wrist.
“Rasha,” she said, to his surprise. So maybe it was that simple.
“I’m Mull.” He didn’t think it would matter if he gave her his real name. He’d come to realize that no one in the den really cared who he was – as long as he did what he was told and stayed put.
She only grunted. What would Sheuan have said to that? He had no idea.
Rasha seemed content to thump along in silence, stopping every so often to stretch out her leg.
The missing horn and the wounded leg seemed recent, and he assumed she must have received both injuries fighting against the gods.
He’d always seen the godkillers move in groups of three, but she didn’t have a blade at her side and she wasn’t in any condition to fight.
So Kluehnn must have sent her to the archives so she could recover.
She didn’t seem happy about it. He caught glimpses of her grimace, of lowered brows, and every so often her claws would prick his skin as her grip tightened, as though some unpleasant thought had just occurred to her.
When they at last returned to the archives, the place was empty. “The others have gone to the mess hall for dinner,” Rasha said. “You’ll have to go without.”
He didn’t dare protest.
She led him to a crate, let go of his arm, and cracked the lid open with her claws. Stacks of papers lay inside, scattered like refuse. He caught glimpses of several different languages, all of which he recognized.
Rasha pointed into the crate. “Read them to me.”
There was something subversive about the demand.
A godkiller wanting to know what was going on in the archives?
And no one else was here. She wasn’t doing this under any command; Kluehnn already knew what was happening in this room.
All Mull wanted was to get out of this room again, to wander the tunnels with a notebook, recording every phrase Tolemne had carved into the walls.
But he didn’t have leave to do that. He licked his lips.
She didn’t have a dagger at her side, but the crutch and the claws looked dangerous enough to him.
Sheuan would have handled this better. He wondered what exactly she was doing now, whether she was safe. “What if I don’t want to?”
Her lips set into a line. “Read them to me. Or I’ll tell everyone here that you’re a spy. And I don’t even know if I’d be lying.”