CHAPTER 8
I WAS LYING IN my bunk, dozing as I listened to the half-dozen other Sublimes snoring in their sheets. I didn’t know any of them: I was too old to be an apprentice, and thus too old for the Sublimes’ quarters, so I didn’t associate with them much; but I had grown used to sleeping with strangers about. I almost found the sound comforting.
I listened to the rain pattering on our fretvine roof, and then the sound of distant thunder.
The thunder continued, on and on. It crackled, then snapped curiously. Then more snaps, and more.
I sat up in my bunk, realizing I was not hearing thunder at all.
I stood and shouted, “Out of bed! Now!”
“The hell?” muttered one of the boys. “What’s the matter with you?”
“That’s bombard fire, goddamn it!” I shouted. I ran for the door. “Get outside, now, now!”
I scrambled out into the driving rain to find I wasn’t alone: the wet night was filling with figures sprinting from their quarters, all of us making for the earthworks on the eastern side of the town’s fortifications. We ran up the sides of the hillocks, grabbing grasses to haul ourselves higher on their slippery slopes, until finally we came to the eastern side and peered south.
I narrowed my eyes. It was hard to see in the glittering, rainy darkness, but I thought I could spy flickers on the southern horizon, flashes of yellow-white light. Bombard fire, bright and brilliant.
“Can’t be,” said a voice near me. “We’re too far out to hear or see bombards…”
“Unless it’s the big guns,” said someone else. “Then who knows?”
“Or they could be firing in from the sea walls,” said another boy quietly. “But then that would mean…”
The rain hammered on us, on and on, pelting our scalps and the puddles at our feet.
“If it’s a breach,” I said, “we’d see the beacon.” I felt a fluttering in my eyes and summoned a map of the region I’d glanced at once. I pointed into a stretch of darkness. “It’d be there.”
More flickers of light, more crackles of bombard. We stood on the earthworks listening to the whole of Daretana awaken, the distant orders shouted and screamed, the cry of horses, the slamming of many doors.
And then it appeared, glimmering in the darkness: a single, narrow lick of fluttering yellow flame.
“Beacon’s up,” I said hoarsely. “A titan’s made it past the walls…”
Then someone started screaming: “It’s a breach! Breach, breach, it’s a breach!”
The whole world fell to chaos then. The tocsin bells started ringing out, a skull-clattering clang-clang. People struggled to light torches or get their mai-lanterns glowing. The engravers among us proved helpful: we remembered the policy for this, where to go and what to do, and soon we had all the other Sublimes and troops and anyone available mustering in the fields north of Daretana, waiting in the pouring rain.
The waiting seemed to go on and on. I heard whispers in the rain, perhaps sobs. I glanced at one Sublime’s tall, perfect posture and saw his eyes were shut tight and he’d bitten his lip so hard he bled.
Then a commander of the Legion finally arrived—you could see the shine of his crested helm beneath the glow of a lantern—and the senior officers distributed orders: all Engineering and Legion officers were to pack up and move out south for Talagray immediately. All other soldiers were to help them pack as best they could, then stay behind and prep Daretana for immediate evacuation if needed.
What followed was mad, muddy chaos. The baggage train came rumbling into town and we all swarmed the roads, helping to heave sacks and trunks up onto the towering carts, grabbing gear from Engineers or Legionnaires as they hurried to arrange their personal packs. It was strange to see us all so transformed, so hurried and grim, rushing to prepare these people—acquaintances, friends, lovers, enemies, strangers—to venture out into the darkness and face the unknown. I looked for friends of my own from my first days in Sublime training, but the rain and the half light and the whirl of shouted words made identifying anyone impossible.
Then it was over. We never felt like we finished, but someone told us to stop. We withdrew to the side of the road and watched. Then in the flickering light of the torches, the Engineers and Legionnaires trooped out, this tremendous ribbon of horses and baggage and soaking people, their helmets and caps and armor glinting in the occasional flash of lightning.
We watched them go in silence. Someone shouted something, some order, but I just stood there. How shattering it felt to realize that the order of all our lives could be dashed to pieces in a few frenzied moments by the rumblings in the east.
Then I felt a hand on my arm, its fingers digging into my flesh, and I spun to find the snarling, soaking face of Captain Thalamis.
“Did you hear me, you half-brained idiot?” he bellowed. “Get to your assignment now in case we need to evacuate!” He shoved me, hard, and I slipped backward in the mud. “In your case, it means your addle-brained bitch of an investigator! Go!”
I felt my blood flash hot then, and I stood up. He saw the look on my face and tapped the hilt of his sword at his side. “Try it, fool. It’ll be faster than failing you out, at least.”
I watched him for a moment. Then I turned and trudged away in the rain.
“I thought so!” he called after me.
—
BY THE TIME I made it to Ana’s house the rain had dwindled to a soft patter. I didn’t bother knocking, indifferent to what state she was in: I just barged in, fuming and soaking.
“Hello, Din,” she called from the meeting room.
I plodded through the house and found her kneeling before her quake contraption, which was chiming and clanking like mad. It was dark within, and I found her mai-lantern and gave it a shake. The little glowing worms within awoke, and their faint blue light slowly filtered throughout the room.
“Ma’am,” I said dully. “There’s been a breach. We need to get you prepared in case we need to evacuate.”
“Thank you, Din,” she said softly. “I had gathered as such. But there should be no need for an evacuation.”
“What do you mean, ma’am?”
“I have been monitoring the quakes since they began,” she said. She nodded to her contraption. “They’ve grown steadily quieter over the last hour. This indicates that the leviathan has retreated, probably farther to the south, back to the sea walls.” She looked up at me, still blindfolded. “It’s what they were trained to do.”
“Who?”
“The Legion,” she said. “They have armaments capable of distracting the leviathans, drawing them away from the cities and towns, and back to the walls—where all the bombards await. They plan to shoot it to death there, I imagine.” She took off her blindfold and looked up at me. She must have seen the terror and fury in my face, because she tried to smile, and asked, “Why don’t you make me some tea, Din?”
“Pardon, ma’am?” I asked faintly. “Tea?”
“Yes. You make such a good pot of tea, Din. I think that would be quite welcome now.”
I went through the motions thoughtlessly, starting the little fire in her stove, setting the kettle to boil atop it. I pulled pinches of dried leaves from the cotton sacks hanging above, moistened them with a few drops of water, and then carefully ground them in the mortar with slow, twisting movements. As the kettle shrieked, I took a few leaves of mint, broke them apart, and added them to the mix, before packing it all into the infuser, which I slotted into the kettle’s spout. Then I poured two cups and the air filled with a powerful, complex aroma.
“Smells wonderful,” said Ana. She sipped at her cup. “Tastes wonderful.”
I bowed my thanks, still unable to speak.
“And I note,” said Ana, “that you always make it the exact same way. Same twist of the pestle. Same pinches of the leaves. Exactly the same, every time.”
“A friend showed me how,” I said numbly.
We sat in the blue half light, clutching our cups and listening to the rain and the sound of the tocsin bells in the distance.
“Did you have any friends going out tonight?” she asked.
“A few. In Engineering. Haven’t seen much of them recently, since they got their assignments a while ago and I didn’t, but…” I trailed off, not knowing what to say. “I didn’t see them. Didn’t get to say goodbye.”
“If they’re Engineering, they should be safer,” said Ana. “Not safe, of course, but safer. They don’t send the Engineers in until the leviathan itself is dealt with. Then the Engineers take stock of the situation and patch up the fortifications as fast as they can. For that’s when things get trickier. They’ll relocate the bombards to defend the breach point, but…naturally, that makes every other part of the walls harder to defend.”
“So my friends won’t be in danger now,” I said, “but later?”
“Correct, and incorrect,” said Ana. “A breach is a terrible thing, Din. We’re all in danger now, for the rest of the wet season.”
“And what are we to do about that, ma’am?”
She shrugged. “Wait. And see.”
—
I STAYED UP all night with Ana, listening to the chiming of her contraption and her constant babble as she shot around the room, opening up books and massaging their pages with her head at an angle, sometimes reading aloud or voicing some bizarre fact or theory of hers.
“They use seakips in the third ring to pull barges through their canals,” she said once, “little swollen dolphin creatures with doglike faces, but apparently there’s been some sort of suffusion issue. The Apothetikals bred a new kind of oyster that can grow to great sizes, but the oyster hosts a germ that gets into the water, and this germ makes the seakips profoundly aroused, all the time. Apparently they rut themselves to death.”
“Is that so, ma’am,” I said, exhausted.
“Yes. Many bargemen have taken to castrating their seakips—but this is pretty tricky, Din, as the appropriate anatomy is not terribly accessible. Or identifiable. It takes a trained eye and a steady hand—in case you’re ever looking for a new job.”
I half smiled at such a gruesome idea. I knew she was trying to keep me distracted from all the horror and the worry, and I appreciated her for it.
Time stretched on. I was about to doze off where I sat—and then I sat up, eyes wide.
“It’s…gone,” I said. “Your chimes. It’s quiet.”
“Yes,” said Ana. She knelt before her contraption, which was now silent. The crackle of bombards in the distance had tapered off as well. “It seems it is.”
“Do you think they’ve really killed it, ma’am?”
“Probably. Hopefully. It’s early morning now. We’ll know in a day or so if it’s really dead.”
—
I RAN BACK to Daretana and found a crowd of fellow soldiers and Sublimes waiting outside of Stephinos’s post station. Stephinos made a show of sitting out front on the ground, and when asked he’d only say, “I’d damned well tell you all if I knew something worth telling.”
We waited for hours in the muggy air, milling about uselessly. We watched as scribe-hawks sailed overhead—homing birds the Apoths had designed to carry messages long distances—but none came to us, probably because we were already so close to Talagray. No one gave us any duties, nor shouted at us for our aimless loitering. Everyone knew the whole day would change when word arrived.
Then, close to evening, it came: two riders, both in Legion black, mounted atop league-horses—the giant steeds altered to cross huge amounts of land in mere hours. The first rider, a woman, stopped at Stephinos’s station; the other, a man, kept going, probably to carry word to the towns beyond.
Everyone hurried to water the messenger’s horse and bring her whatever she needed, but all she asked for was a box to stand on. She clambered aboard it and addressed the crowd, shouting, “The leviathan has been felled.”
So stern was her face, though, that no one cheered.
“It was felled to the south,” she continued. “Just east of the town of Sapfir. It has created a gap in the walls just over a league wide.”
A gasp rippled through us. To begin with, Sapfir was near to Talagray, which meant the leviathan had come close to destroying the largest city in the Outer Rim. But far worse was the breach: a gap over a league wide was much larger than any in recent memory.
“As such,” said the messenger, “all Legionnaires and Engineers from the ten neighboring cantons will be redirected to Talagray. Daretana will need to expedite their movement as much as possible. You should prepare for a large influx of imperial troops.”
The muttering rose among the crowd.
Then the messenger pulled a piece of parchment from her pocket and glanced at it. “Lastly—is anyone here familiar with Iudex Investigator…ah, Immunis Anagosa Dolabra?”
The muttering went dead quiet. All eyes slowly turned to look at me.
I raised my hand. “Uh…I am, ma’am.”
“Please tell her she is directed to remain in place and prepare for the arrival of Commander-Prificto Desmi Vashta,” she said, “of the Imperial Legion. She will be here by tomorrow evening to brief her. That is all!”
Then she mounted her horse and rode off for the next canton.
—
“WELL,” SAID ANA when I told her the news. “That’s a pretty big goddamn surprise, isn’t it!” She grinned.
“Apologies, ma’am, but I can’t find much to smile about at this moment,” I said.
“Oh, you’ve always got to smile a little, Din,” said Ana. “Even during, you know, the abysmally fucking awful times.” She cocked her head. “A commander-prificto! That’s a high rank indeed…and she’s coming here for me, personally, during a crisis. Something’s amiss.”
“I had assumed the same, ma’am. But what, I can’t imagine.”
“Hm.” She sat back in her short stuffed chair, her eyes blindfolded. “Din—you only have the one Iudex coat, don’t you?”
“Ah—yes, ma’am?”
“And your boots. They’re a bit shit, aren’t they? Not to insult you, but…”
“They’re not as fine as some boots, ma’am,” I said curtly. “But they’re what I can afford.”
“Right…I think you’re going to need to buy some new clothes, Din. Several coats and new boots, certainly.” She stood, walked to one desk, and opened a drawer. “Here.” She slid out a small bag of talint coins. “A present for you, given your performance during the Blas murder. Try and get that done before nightfall. Then shower, pack, and be ready.”
“Thank you, but—ready for what, ma’am?”
“A very serious conversation,” she said. “About something very bad. And then, I think, a departure. But to where, I’m not yet sure.”
—
I WAITED AT the post station, dressed in my fine new blue coat and my shiny black boots. None of my apparel had been broken in yet—the coat chafed my armpits, and the boots pinched my toes—so I kept pacing, hands behind my back.
Then I heard the sound of horses’ hooves and peered into the darkness. Two riders emerged from the wet night, both covered in black cloaks, their helmets painted black as well. They slowed to a halt at the post station and dismounted. Stephinos took their horses, exchanged a quick word with them, then pointed to me.
I stood up straight, hands behind my back, face purged of emotion. I’d never spoken to anyone above the rank of captain before—except for Ana, who hardly seemed to count. I had especially never spoken to an elite officer in the Legion, the most demanding and honored of all the Iyalets. I shoved my breast forward at them, ensuring they’d see all my heralds: the flower and the bar, denoting me assistant investigator; and the eye set within a box, indicating I was also an engraver.
The commander-prificto approached me first. I didn’t need to see the heralds on her ebony cloak to identify her as such: a glance at her gray face indicated many alterations, and her dark, serious eyes suggested someone who had seen no shortage of horrors in her time. She was a tall woman, shoulders broad, jaw set. Slight twitch to her step, suggesting some chronic tweak in her back. Her helm was ornate, engraved with letters in Old Khanum: the emperor’s declaration founding the Legion so many centuries ago. A fine piece of artistry. I wondered if she wore it in such critical moments to command the greatest respect.
She was followed by a Legion captain, a tall, younger man with a handsome, fair face and pale eyes. Though his helm was fine and black, it wasn’t engraved like the commander-prificto’s. His eyes were dark with fatigue, a dash of stubble clinging to his chin; yet though he was obviously tired, he moved robustly, his big, athletic frame bouncing along merrily. The physical alterations of the Legion, I guessed, could keep a fellow going even after a breach.
I bowed low as they approached. “Welcome to Daretana,” I said. “I’m Signum Dinios Kol, Assistant Investigator for Immunis Ana Dolabra.”
Both of them gave me the tiniest bows in return. “Thank you for meeting us,” said the commander-prificto. Her voice sounded very hoarse, and very tired. “Please take me to the investigator right away.”
I led them through Daretana, then to the edge of town and into the dark jungle. They did not talk. I expected them to be surprised by Ana’s living quarters, but neither said a thing; either they knew about her situation or they were too tired to care.
I had planned to walk up, knock, and introduce the commander-prificto to Ana; but there appeared to be some unspoken Legion procedure here, for the captain stopped me to talk, while the commander-prificto continued on.
“Beg pardon, Signum,” he said. “But has anyone here made inquiries about our meeting tonight?”
“Inquiries?” I said. “No, sir.”
“No one has asked about the nature of our visit?”
“No, sir.”
“And you have seen no one hanging about your immunis lately? Watchful or paying undue attention?”
He glanced off into the shadows, eyes narrow.
I looked down. His hand was resting close to his sword.
I took a breath, and my eyes fluttered as I summoned up my memories. “I have seen twenty-seven people come near the path to my immunis’s house, sir,” I said. “Some came several times—nineteen total unique visitors, I should say—but none seemed unusual or malicious.”
The captain looked startled. Then he laughed—a rich, merry sound. “Ah! An engraver, of course. I’d forgotten. Very good, then. Thank you.” We continued walking, and when we reached the porch he removed his helmet and shook out a startlingly lustrous mane of curly brown hair. As light spilled across his fair face I saw he was not much older than I was.
He gave me a careless grin. “Apologies for all this skullduggery, Signum. I’ve no talent for it. But perhaps you, in your line of work, are more accustomed.”
I had no idea what to say to such a thing, so I bowed.
“Come, then,” he said. His smile faded, but he seemed the sort who could never banish all the mirth from his face. “Let us catch up to them.”
—
I OPENED THE door to find Ana had rearranged her quarters into the same manner as when she’d interrogated Gennadios, but with two chairs before her desk rather than three. Ana herself was standing behind the desk, blindfolded as always, and was saying, “…hope the journey was well.”
“As well as it could be, Immunis.” The commander-prificto seemed unsurprised by the blindfold. “Thank you for meeting with me. It’s unfortunate that we have to do so under these circumstances. Please sit.”
Ana did so, and I took my place behind her. Ana cocked her head, listening to my footsteps, then said, “This is Signum Dinios Kol, ma’am, my engraver. Din, this is Commander-Prificto Desmi Vashta, of the Tala Army of the Imperial Legion.”
I bowed again to her. Vashta nodded, sat, and removed her black helmet, revealing hair that was thick, dark, and short. She gestured to the captain beside her. “This is Captain Kepheus Strovi, my second.”
The smiling young captain bowed his head to Ana.
“Normally I would inquire about your assignment here, Immunis,” said Vashta. “But etiquette is often one of the first casualties during an emergency, so I will cut to it.”
“I understand entirely,” said Ana.
“You wrote a letter recently to the Iudex office in the Tala canton. About a murder that took place here.”
“Yes. Commander Taqtasa Blas.”
“You mentioned the nature of the incident. But…I was hoping you could summarize it in more depth for me, before we talk further.”
“Certainly,” said Ana. She gestured to me. “Din can take care of that, naturally.”
I blinked, surprised, and looked at her.
She gave me a small, wry smile. “You are my engraver, after all,” she said.
“Oh. Yes, ma’am.” Then I stepped forward and slid out my vial of lye-scent that I’d used the day of the investigation. I sniffed it, focused, and let the queer, tickling sensation flood into the backs of my eyes. Then I started talking.
I kept it short: I listed the dates, the locations, the names of everyone involved, and the nature of the case. Then I detailed Ana’s investigation and conclusions, as well as our latest efforts to learn more about Blas and why he might have been targeted for assassination. I was aware as I did so that I couldn’t help mimicking Ana’s accent and cadence—but that was the nature of engraving someone’s speech. You couldn’t quite help what you picked up.
I spoke for nearly three quarters of an hour, and when I finished the two Legion officers simply sat there, faces bleak yet unreadable.
“I assume, Immunis,” Vashta said finally, “that you are aware of the breach.”
“I know a leviathan broke through the walls,” said Ana, “but that is the extent of my knowledge.”
Vashta was silent, as if debating how best to articulate a question.
“I have speculated that Commander Blas’s murder might have weakened our defenses,” said Ana. “Or that someone else might have been targeted in the same way. Might that be the case?”
Vashta stared into the distance for a long time. “What I am about to say to you, Immunis,” she said slowly, “is a very great secret. One we are still trying to understand ourselves.”
“All right, ma’am.”
“You and your engraver cannot repeat it to anyone,” she said. “For if you did, it could very easily cause a panic. And a panic is not what we need right now.”
“That is understood, ma’am,” said Ana.
Vashta glanced at Strovi, then said, “The leviathan did not single-handedly cause the breach. Rather, the walls were destabilized from within. This severely weakened their foundation, leading to a small, contained collapse. This all took place well before the leviathan approached. However, it was this collapse, and this weakening, that the leviathan took advantage of.”
“We think it sensed the collapse in the waters, ma’am,” said Strovi. “Heard it while it was rising through the sea floor, so it knew where to target.”
“We had to remove our bombards from that segment of the walls, fearing further collapse,” said Vashta. “As such, the wall was not only weak when the leviathan came, but it had much reduced defenses. It was the perfect circumstances for a breach.”
Ana shot forward like a mudsnake striking. “A destabilization from within,” she said. “I see!”
Vashta paused, puzzled. “See…what, precisely?”
“That it was likely not one person who was poisoned,” said Ana, “but several, if not many.”
I couldn’t make any sense of what she’d said, but Vashta and Strovi exchanged another look, this one terribly alarmed.
“What do you mean?” demanded Vashta.
Ana’s fingers danced on the edge of the table. “Allow me to make a conjecture, Commander-Prificto,” she said.
“Do so.”
“Did the destabilization within the walls occur because multiple people within the fortifications—how shall I put this delicately—spontaneously sprouted trees from their bodies, damaging the walls?”
Vashta stared at Ana, astonished. “That is so,” she said softly. “Yes, that is so.”
“I see,” said Ana. She nodded, satisfied. Then she sat back in her chair, sniffed, and said, “Well. Fuck.”