Page 13

Chapter 13

Again, we waited. The sun slowly slid through the sky until it hung heavy over the western hills. Tufwa and his colleagues continued to work, opening up safe after safe. Eventually they finished, with nothing else found: only the weight of the safe belonging to this Immunis Rava Ghrelin had been changed.

Finally we heard the whine of the gate hinges, followed by the clack of the locks of the great bank door. Then the wardens returned, followed by a third person.

He was a tall man, and delicately built, with pale gray skin and eyes so gleaming black they had the look of fresh tar. His head was quite hairless, but this did not surprise me: many Apoths who worked with reagents preferred to simply alter their scalps so their hair did not grow at all, rather than cleanse and sterilize their hair every day after their work. Perhaps in compensation for this, his face had been ornamented with paints and powders, a common practice of some Kurmini men: a blush of brown to his gray cheeks, and lines about his eyes. Yet despite these graceful touches, his face bore a look of anxiety akin to that of some caged creature startled by an intrusion into its paddock.

I looked to Tufwa as he entered. He gave me a slight nod— That’shim.

“I shall let you take the lead on this, Signum,” said Kardas quietly behind me. “I believe you have more experience with questioning people…”

“As you wish, sir,” I said. I stood as the man entered, moved to intercept him before the vault, and studied his heralds as he approached. The axiom symbol twinkled at his breastbone, the spiral set within a square: a man with a mind for calculation, then.

I bowed low to him. “Good afternoon. Would you be Immunis Rava Ghrelin, sir?”

“I am,” he said warily. “And you are?”

“Signum Dinios Kol, of the Iudex.”

“Iudex? I wasn’t aware that we had Iudex in Yarrowdale, being as this region is not yet formally part of the Empire.”

“I’m with Special Division, sir,” I said. “We are only assigned to high-priority situations.”

Ghrelin slowly nodded. Then his gaze flicked to Kardas, and he studied the prificto’s heralds. “Ah. That…that Treasury officer, the missing one. Is that it?”

“Correct, sir,” I said. “I’m afraid I have to ask you a few questions about your business at this bank. Would you like to sit?”

He thought about it. “No,” he said finally.

“All right,” I said, somewhat taken aback. “Might I ask what your duties are here in Yarrowdale, sir?”

“What does this have to do with my vault box, Signum?” he demanded.

“I am unsure at this moment, sir. But I must know before we continue further.”

His mouth compressed into a tight, bloodless line. “I am part of the Medikker Fermentation Division. We are responsible for designing new alterations, grafts, and suffusions to amend issues with the human body. Is that what you need?”

“Issues such as…?”

He waved a hand impatiently. “Such as combating disease, or deformations, or chronic injuries and the like! Now tell me—why am I here, please? What is going on with my box, Signum?”

I studied his expression. He now seemed cold and imperious, yet there was something brittle about his eyes. I felt he was trying to read my own expression, as if I were a medikker myself and he wished to hear news of a family member’s prognosis.

I thought: He already knows.

“I am afraid that we’ve had a breach in the defenses of this bank, sir,” I said. “One box has been tampered with, and only one—yours.”

His dark eyes leapt back and forth between me, Kardas, and Malo lurking before the vault. “And…what was stolen?”

“We do not yet know, sir,” I said. “The Treasury weight check actually indicates it contains more than it should.”

“So…you are proposing that someone added something to my box, rather than stealing from it?”

“Again, we do not yet know. We were hoping you could open it for us to inspect it—though I would like to know what was in it before we do so.”

Ghrelin struggled in silence for a moment. His cheek began to twitch, as did his arms and fingers.

Then he did something very curious: he dropped his right hand and began tapping erratically with three fingers against his belt buckle, creating a tap-tap-tap noise. Yet though this tapping continued, he neither wept nor broke into a rage.

“How did this happen?” he whispered.

“We’re attempting to discover that, sir. We suspect it is in connection with the capture and murder of a senior imperial officer.”

He swallowed. “Papers. It…the box contained papers. But it also contained reagents, to be shipped to the inner rings. A messenger was scheduled to arrive here, open the box, take the papers and the reagents, and board a barge for the inner rings.”

“I see, sir. And…what kind of reagents or materials would this have been for?”

He looked at me, startled, like I had distracted him from some deep reflection. Again, I felt him trying to read my expressions.

“Healing grafts,” he said.

“Mere healing grafts, sir?”

“Yes. But a formula that was still in development and was not fit to be produced at scale.” He suddenly spoke very quickly. “It was proving effective against many respiratory diseases. Drop cough, cavley, irtius, jharelia, more. These are very common diseases that kill thousands each year, especially children and the elderly. With this new formulation, we…we hope to change that.”

Malo and her wardens were slowly standing up behind me.

“I see,” I said. “Then would you come with us, sir, and open the box? We would very much like to confirm what has happened to it.”

He swallowed and nodded, his hand still tapping on his belt. “Certainly.”

—

The vault was utterly silent as we entered. All the Treasury and Apoth officers watched Ghrelin, who anxiously teetered over to the table with the box, his trembling hands still tapping on his belt; yet Ghrelin himself took no notice of any one of us, and stared instead at the box itself, as if it held some deadly weapon he dreaded.

“I believe you’ll just need to put your hand against the balmleaf there, sir,” I said.

“Of course,” he said quietly. “I have done this countless times myself, Signum.”

Yet he hesitated, his fingers still rapidly tapping on his belt.

“Very good, sir,” I said. “But—please, once it’s been unlocked, allow me to open it. Just in case.”

“In case of what, Signum?”

“I cannot say. But—just in case, sir.”

Ghrelin glanced around at the room, taking in the many officers who were with us. He opened his mouth as if to object, then thought better of it, took a breath, and pressed his hand to the balmleaf lock.

The balmleaf turned a faint brown color. There came a click from somewhere within the box.

I stepped forward to open it for him; yet Ghrelin was faster, and to my surprise, he anxiously reached out and flicked open the box’s lid to peer within.

I began to demand he stop, yet then Ghrelin screamed and staggered backward, as if all too eager to get as far away as he could from the box.

“Oh, hell!” he cried. “By Sanctum! What…what is that! Who is that, who is that ?”

We all gazed at him, bewildered. Then I approached the box.

Inside it sat a lumpen, withered object, rounded at the top and rippled at the bottom, and covered all over with dark, wrinkled flesh, like that of a cut of meat left in a smoker pot for a very long while. It was quite large, being about a span tall and three quarters of a span wide. I only realized what it was when I saw the protuberance of a crooked nose in the middle, and below that two delicate, paperish lips; and there, on either side, shriveled, shrimplike appendages that could have once been ears.

“Ah,” I said softly.

I heard Prificto Kardas whisper beside me, “What in hell ?”

Then Malo: “Oh, fuck.”

It was a head. A severed human head that had been mummified or preserved, with nearly every feature still intact save its eyes, which must have been removed, for the sockets now sat empty. The surreality of the sight was so intense that I almost laughed.

Yet the maddest thing was the small piece of parchment tucked between the dark, paperish lips; for written there in very small, careful handwriting, were ten words:

For those who sip from the marrow

Te siz imperiya.

I stared at the words, astounded.

Malo shook her head, made a quiet tch sound, and said, “Well. I am afraid I am going to have to ask you all to leave the bank. And quickly, too.”

“Wh-what?” demanded Prificto Kardas. “What do you mean, Signum?”

“We wardens have a procedure for when an organic substance is used as a tool of sabotage or tampering,” she sighed. “And a goddamn head qualifies as a substance, and sticking one in an Iyalet vault is most definitely tampering. We shall have to all troop in here and make sure it is not a carrier of infection—and then try to figure out whose fucking head that is.”

“But…but where is it?” asked Ghrelin faintly.

“Where is what, sir?” asked Malo.

“Where…where have all my materials gone?” he asked, panicked. Then his voice grew to a shriek: “Where has it all gone, where has it gone? ” One of the Treasury officers went to comfort him, but he violently shoved her back, shouting, “Don’t touch me! Don’t you know what’s been done to me? Don’t you understand what’s been done ?”

Then he burst into tears and collapsed to the floor, his face buried in his hands.