Page 47

Chapter 47

The journey back to Yarrowdale was strange and uneasy. All I’d seen of the Shroud had been like a nightmare: the rippling green husk of the veil; the sight of the trembling marrow, bound within the shining moss; and then the augurs themselves, who had at first seemed so inhuman, yet in the end had proven so vulnerable and despairing.

And then there was the truth I’d spied in that awful place, which boiled in my mind like a hot ball of iron dropped into a cooling bucket. I had to be rid of it, for otherwise it might burn me up.

Once ashore, Ghrelin and I were led to yet another Apoth observation chamber, and washed and cleaned again, and then plied with many blotley larvae of different colors. I grimaced as they pulled the horrid things from me; I still had not healed from my first blotley, and Sanctum only knew how long the new ones would persist.

It took some hours for me to pass my tests, but pass them I did, while Ghrelin was rushed away to recuperate from the effects of the augury. I asked one of the Apoths to thank him for his service and wish him well, then hurried to dress as they processed my release. The door opened before me, and I rushed outside.

Then I stopped. Malo stood across the street from me, bound in her red cloak, arms crossed.

“You alive?” she called.

“I am,” I said.

“You’re not sprouting horns, or growing grass out your ears, or dripping fluid from any bits of you?”

“I am not.”

“Good.” She crossed the lane to me. “Then I shall risk the airs about you to tell you ill tidings—for the prince has sent us a message.” She looked me in the eye, her face as grim as I’d ever seen it. “Darhi is gone.”

“Gone? Pyktis has killed him as well?”

“No,” said Malo slowly. “Not that. Rather, he has fled in the night. After grabbing a sizable chunk of the Yarrow treasury from the king’s vaults, too.”

I gaped at her, trying to make sense of this. “Darhi…So. He was…”

“Pyktis’s contact within the court,” said Malo. “Yes. So we think.”

“ Darhi was the one coordinating with him and Gorthaus…and now he’s run?”

“So it seems!” said Malo. She grinned cheerlessly. “Makes sense, as he was the fucker managing all the diplomatic meetings! And he, of course, was already willing to betray his realm by indulging in Kardas’s double dealings. Perhaps we should have seen it sooner.”

“But Gorthaus’s murder rattled him.”

“As it should have! If Pyktis really is killing off all his old allies, and if he’s so clever that a citadel full of armed guards can’t stop him, I’d wish to flee in the night, too.”

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “And do we have a guess where he might have gone?”

“The prince’s folk have no fucking idea. We are told Darhi has fled so quickly and thoroughly that it is clear he planned his flight for some time, and ensured he is difficult to track. The amount of money he stole is apparently so great that the prince is now nothing short of despondent. The dolt has even pledged permission to let us pursue him deep into the realm! Ana thinks on how best to do this but wished to wait for you. I hope you have better news for us?”

“No,” I said huskily. “No, I do not.”

“Then let us go to her. She waits in Thelenai’s office. Perhaps she has a miracle in her pocket and can stab a hole in these black clouds for us.”

—

I sat among the blooms of Thelenai’s office, hunched and shivering as I clutched a cup of tea, recounting to them all I’d seen within the Shroud. Thelenai stood at the windows, facing away, while Malo lurked behind a clutch of coiled vines like a predator stalking its prey. Only Ana moved, sitting hunched before the wall of flowers, rocking back and forth, yet even in such a colorful place, the sight of her made my blood cold: she seemed thinner and gaunter than ever, as if she was so burdened with thought that her body burned up its sustenance faster than she could replenish it.

When I finished, there was a silence. Then Malo said, “By gods…they let you see it? They truly let you see the marrow?”

“Yes,” murmured Thelenai. “What a privilege that must have been. One even I myself have not experienced…”

I glanced at Ana, who had stopped moving. It seemed Malo and Thelenai had not grasped my revelation. I wondered if I had been mad for thinking it.

There was another disturbing, glottal click from Ana’s throat, and she shifted on her pillow. “I am most fixated by the Shroud itself…a thing so terribly unnatural, bred and formed to survive all the cruelties nature throws at us. It is most grotesquely imperial, in a way!” Her pale fingers crawled over her knees. “Yet I am even less surprised now to find that my theories of Pyktis prove true. Even he was broken by dwelling in that strange place—enough to reveal a great secret of himself.” She turned her blindfolded face to Malo. “For you recognize the descriptions of those totems, do you not, Signum?”

“I do,” said Malo. “They almost sound like ancestor totems of Yarrow. But I can’t fathom why an augur would ever wish to—”

Ana’s blindfolded face swiveled to me. “Din!”

“Y-yes, ma’am?”

“You’ve already put it together, haven’t you? Just as the augurs said.”

“I…somewhat think so, ma’am.”

“Then out with it. Speak, child.”

Again, I balked, feeling like the words swilling in my mouth were howlingly mad. “I…I think Pyktis—or the man who came to the Shroud claiming to be Pyktis, ma’am…”

“Yes?” purred Ana.

“I think he is not Rathras at all,” I said. “I think he is Yarrow. And not just Yarrow—I think he is a child of the Yarrow court. Perhaps a child of King Lalaca himself. That, or…or he believes himself to be these things.”

There was a silence, broken only by the afternoon breeze sweeping across the shore outside. Thelenai turned to stare at me, her mouth hanging open in shock.

“ What? ” said Malo, astonished.

“That is not possible,” said Thelenai.

“Oh, I surmise the same,” said Ana mildly. “And I, for one, am tempted to conclude that it is more than belief! I think Sunus Pyktis is the child of the dead king of Yarrow. And I think he has known this for all his life.”

“But…no!” said Malo. “That’s the maddest thing I’ve ever heard! Surely he just…just happened to…”

“ Happened to keep these ancestral totems of the Yarrow regent?” asked Ana. “ Happened to build a shrine to their kings in secret? Happened to perpetrate an attack on the Shroud? Happened to assist the High City in undermining the Empire for the past two years? No. No, no, that is all too much coincidence for me.”

“No,” said Thelenai faintly. “Still, I…I cannot…”

“Think, all of you,” said Ana. “Long have we wondered how Pyktis seemed to possess such a mastery over Yarrow culture. How does he know the language, and the court? How does he know about the High City at all, when most imperials are utterly ignorant of it? The answer, though improbable, is simple. Pyktis is part of the culture, because he is the child of the king. For the thing he cherished most was a piece of jewelry, yes? A silver necklace, just like those given to countless princes before him.”

“That just can’t be so!” cried Malo. “There already is a prince of Yarrow! Though we know he is a weak fool, Prince Camak is the one and only prince of the realm!”

“True, but it is what Pyktis believes that matters!” said Ana. “And I think he believed he was heir—the true prince, living in secret.”

“I still cannot accept this!” said Thelenai. “It is sheer insanity!”

“Is it?” said Ana coyly. “The king has over two hundred children. Chance alone suggests it’s possible for some of them to wind up in very unusual places, yes?”

“But we check all of our Apoths most rigorously!” cried Thelenai. “How could we not have learned this man was Yarrow? He is not just of Rathras folk, he is from Rathras! How could he have fabricated his entire history, and performed well enough in his duties to get placed on the Shroud?”

“I think the answer there is that much of his history was not fabricated!” Ana answered. “Din—when I reviewed the files on Pyktis, I mentioned a note about his birth year. Kindly recount it for me!”

My eyes quivered, and I quoted in her own accent: “ The only unusual thing I saw was a note from a Rathras registrar stating he thought the boy’s birth year was inaccurate, for he seemed far older than the listed birth year… ”

Malo shuddered. “How strange it is to hear her speech come from your lips…”

“But you both see what it suggests, do you not?” asked Ana. “For I believe when he was born to his Rathras mother in the High City, Pyktis was taken away—probably by his mother, or the king’s servants—and formally registered in the Rathras canton. That accounts for the confusion over his birth year! And I think there, in that distant place, he was raised to be two things at once. A hardworking, brilliant student in the school of Apoths who could pass as a Rathras native…and then, when he was with his intimate family, he was a secret prince of a faraway, wondrous realm, whose kingly father awaited his return. Each night they poured enchanting stories in his ears, and he forged the whole of his being for one purpose.” She tutted her tongue. “I did say at the start of our search that he seemed like a man on a mission…yet even I did not expect this.”

“But what mission could this have been?” asked Thelenai. “Why make one’s entire life into this story?”

Though I did not mean to, I found myself reciting something Darhi had said to me, muttering: “ The children and relations of the king are mere tools to his ancestry. If the king asked us to throw down our lives, we would do so… ”

Ana tipped her head to me. “Thank you, Din—for there it is! I believe his father the king plotted this long ago—a plot to place a Yarrow loyalist deep within the Empire’s workings here, with the eventual goal of sabotaging the Shroud itself! He would use one of his own children to stab at its heart, like marring the heartwood of a great tree. With this act, he would damage the Empire most terribly, and unravel its influence over his kingdom.” She raised her blindfolded eyes to the ceiling. “It was, I think, a suicidal mission. Pyktis himself said his father expected him to die on the Shroud, after all. Yet perhaps his will failed him, for he saved not only those he loved but his own life. Perhaps that sentimental impulse is what saved the Shroud, as well.”

“Yet I wonder, ma’am…why did Darhi appear ignorant of this, ma’am?” I asked. “We know now he was Pyktis’s agent, and we also know he was practically running the realm. Surely he would have discovered this plot?”

“But you forget that the king was terribly aged and addled by Darhi’s time, Din!” said Ana. “So much so that I think the king forgot he’d ever put such a secret plan in place to begin with, thirty-some years ago! Thus Sunus Pyktis washed ashore, a prince who’d not only failed in his one and only duty, but a prince completely forgotten by the realm he’d lived to serve! A rather tragic thing, is it not? He returned to his country as a man with no nation and no identity to call his own. So he invented a new one—the pale king, lord of the canals.”

A dreadful silence fell over us as we absorbed this.

“Though all my reason fights this,” said Malo reluctantly, “I must admit, it hangs, though horribly.”

“But even if we know this mad truth,” said Thelenai, “how shall it help us now? We do not know where Pyktis is, nor where we can find those stolen reagents that can bring down the Shroud!”

“Yet there is one person remaining who might,” said Ana. “Satrap Darhi. He knows much that I wish to know.”

“But do you have any clue where he might be?” cried Thelenai.

“Ah, no,” said Ana, smiling. “But…can anyone truly flee from the wardens of the Empire, who are so famed in powers of nose and eye?”

There was a silence. We all slowly turned to look at Malo.

Malo blinked for a moment, surprised. Then she considered it.

“I presume he has flown far, through dense woods,” said Malo. “That will be no easy thing for us. So…it will take a lot of wardens. A lot of noses. And a method of scent distillation that is most…unpleasant.”

“But you can do it?” asked Ana.

“Probably,” she said grudgingly. “But it will depend mightily on whether someone in the Yarrow court still has some of his undergarments.”

Ana’s smile turned into a grin. “Let us have hope in the lethargy of Yarrow maids, then—and move quickly to follow him!”

—

While Malo and the wardens mustered and prepared, I kitted myself out in the Apoth works with all the supplies I might need for such a pursuit. The last time I had followed such a killer had been across open plains on horseback, yet I would have no such advantages in the hills of Yarrow. Thus, I packed as lightly as I could: rope, healing grafts, water, augmentations to aid my thirst or energy, and last, a standard-issue imperial knife and my sword. I also shed myself of my traditional blue cloak and garbed myself in blacks and grays, and tied down every metal buckle and clasp to ensure that it made no sound and would catch no moonlight in the trees. It was a queer thing to transform myself in such a fashion: no longer an instrument of justice but rather stealth and violence.

“I have one other gift for you, boy,” said Ana’s voice as I finished.

I glanced up and saw Thelenai leading her toward me, one pale hand trailing on the wall. Again, I tried to ignore how worn Ana looked; Pyktis seemed a parasite within her innards, feasting upon her from the inside.

“Yes, ma’am?” I asked.

“Not a reagent, nor arm, but advice,” she said. She managed a weary grin. “For I think the commander-prificto and I have found a way to identify Pyktis. One that cannot mislead you!”

“Truly?” I said, surprised. “If so, that is tremendous luck, ma’am.”

“Luck has no damned part of it, child!” Ana snapped. “This prize took great work and much reading. Bare your right arm, Din, and show it to Thelenai here.”

I did so, though I cringed as I raised the sleeve, as my arm was now pained with several more blotley welts.

“Do they persist?” demanded Ana. “Are the blotley wounds there upon him, Thelenai?”

“They are,” said Thelenai. “I admit you…you may be right, Dolabra.”

“What’s this about, ma’am?” I asked.

Thelenai cleared her throat and looked at me hard. “When blotleys were first created by we Apoths, Kol, they were not intended as a mechanism for testing blood for contagion. Rather, we planned them as a method of transfusion. For the blotley fly does not actually digest blood. They do not break it down like you or I would our sustenance. That is why they are so useful as contagion tests to begin with. Rather, their systems first alter the blood with a venom so that it can be directly integrated into their own bodies. They convert it, in other words, which is why we hoped we could make them useful transfusion mechanisms—for not all folk have the same kind of blood within them. We theorized that if we could drain the blotley of its altered blood, and place this blood within a new body, then the venom still within the sample would help convert it again, so it could reside within a new host. However, this never worked, for very obvious reasons…”

“Because blotleys are an accursed pain in the ass,” said Ana, grinning.

“Again, true,” sighed Thelenai. “Blotleys could only transfer minuscule amounts of blood, and the welts they leave behind were too painful—and worse, they are most resistant to healing grafts. Thus, we abandoned it.”

“But recall now, Din!” said Ana. “Recall what the medikker Tangis said would happen if you left a blotley attached to you for too long!”

My eyes fluttered, and I summoned the comment: “ This is an altered, unnatural creature, created for this one purpose. It can’t survive in the wild anymore. It can’t even eat properly. If I let it go long enough, it’ll actually start leaking your own blood back into you. ” I paused as the memory left me, and murmured, “Back into you…ma’am, are…”

“Yes?” said Ana, giddy.

“Are you suggesting that this is how Pyktis got into the Treasury vault, and used so many blood rights he could not possibly have possessed?”

“Correct!” she sang. “It’s quite simple, is it not? Pyktis, being both a genius and an Apoth, saw a way to cleverly misuse the horrid little things. He stole a crate of them from an Apoth barge, stuck countless larvae on Sujedo, let them drink their fill, then stuck them on his own body ! He left them there long enough so that they leaked Sujedo’s blood into him—and that allowed him to just walk into the vault like he belonged there!”

“And that is why Sujedo’s body was so queerly marred!” I whispered, eyes fluttering. I recalled the sight of the curious wound: a circular section of skin, excised from the flesh on the back of the torso, about the size of a talint coin. “He…he had a patch of skin removed, shorn away on the back shoulder. You think he was…”

“Yes!” said Ana. “I think he, so cautious and ever-wary, had done this to the body because he did not want us to know how he’d taken the blood rights from Sujedo! Because the little bastards leave a stubborn visible trace behind!”

“So if you, Signum Kol, in your pursuit of Darhi, happen to find a soul you suspect to be Pyktis,” said Thelenai, “then the way to confirm it is to see if this man has blotley welts upon his body, in many hidden places.”

“Dozens of them,” said Ana. “Forty or fifty or more. He is quite literally a marked man, in other words!” One scrawny hand reached out and grasped me firmly by the shoulder. “Here is your path now, child. First, you pursue Darhi. Question him, for we must find either Pyktis or the stolen reagents! By achieving either, all our threats shall be ended.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

“Good. Next, Pyktis may be close to Darhi. But if you do not find him on your search, you must return to the High City and seek a man with many blotley welts upon his flesh. For no matter what face that man wears, he is surely Sunus Pyktis himself! Do not tarry—go immediately, for you cannot give him time to scry our movements and slip away! Do you comprehend this?”

I bowed. “I do, ma’am.”

“Then go, and make haste. And do not be slow to strike him down if you think you must! For he has proven a wily thing.” Her fingers released me, and again a glottal click emanated from the base of her throat. “Perhaps too wily to take alive.”