Page 55

Chapter 55

I visited the medikker’s bay each morning to check on Ana. Each day, the medikkers told me she slept. Each day, I collected her post, and compiled it in her quarters. And each day, I began the long chain of answering endless questions: questions asked of me from high Apoth officers, and Treasury officers, and then—inevitably—a commander from the Legion.

They asked me again and again to recount all I’d experienced here in Yarrowdale: all the people I’d interviewed, every scrap of evidence, and every drop of blood I’d seen spilled. All seemed frustrated and furious by what I’d found; though, to my relief, none had much criticism for me, or Ana.

Though I myself did not venture west, I came to gather that the entire realm of Yarrow had splintered and dissolved after Pyktis’s death, with some heirs claiming the throne, and others fleeing the realm outright. I did not know what Pavitar attempted, but the stream of naukari flooding into Yarrowdale suggested he was not successful.

One afternoon I happened upon Prificto Kardas, sitting slumped in a sotbar, deep into his third pot. “We’ve no idea what to do with them all!” he sighed to me. “Perhaps not a full adoption of this nation, then, but a mass migration, with many wardens shepherding them out from their estates! It seems hardly better. The barges of the Apoths may soon be carrying families, as opposed to reagents.” He tossed back another sip of sot. “But I shall not touch it, no! That has little to do with the coin of the Empire. I shall not dip my toe back into these beshatted waters!”

I sought Malo in the city but could not find her. I guessed she had to be one of the shepherds Kardas had mentioned, leading the naukari to freedom in the night as the realm crumbled. I invoked the blessing of Zynjir, deity of the free, and wished her well.

On the fourth day of Ana’s long sleep, I fetched her post and found one parchment for me. I squinted at it and saw to my horror that it was from the Usini Lending Group. Yet when I opened it, the notice did not concern my loans but rather read: NOTICE OF TEMPORARY SUSPENSION OF THE USINI LENDING GROUP DUE TO ONGOING IUDEX INVESTIGATION.

I read the letter carefully and felt an audacious hope flutter within me. It seemed that there had been accusations of corruption within the Usini Lending Group, and after an investigation had been announced, much of the company had collapsed, as the value of their debts had suddenly become very uncertain.

I looked back at the medikker’s bay and recalled my discussion with Ana: Even you cannot change my debts, ma’am.

To which she’d responded: How certain you seem!

I folded the parchment and put it in my pocket, thinking. It was her work behind this, surely, but why had she arranged this? Why impart to me her deadly secret, and then make it simpler and more enticing for me to leave her?

The answer was obvious, once I thought about it.

“Am I so simple to read?” I asked softly.

—

On the morning of the sixth day I found Malo waiting for me before the medikker’s bays, idly watching as one of the attendants swept the front porch. She looked thin and exhausted, and bore many scratches—perhaps injuries from delving deep into the woods of the Elder West—but there was an air of quiet triumph about her.

“I was told that the crazy Iudex woman was here,” Malo said, and then asked, “Is she well? Or have they shipped us a second one for our sins?”

“She has slept for a great while but is to wake today, I’ve been told.” I smiled at her. “But tell me, Malo…how many did you save?”

An innocent shrug. “I don’t know what you mean! I have been on leave and have not meddled in the affairs of the Elder West, which I have been strictly forbidden from doing. This order,” she said somberly, “I have carefully obeyed.” Then she grinned, popped a chunk of hina root into her mouth, and spat on the floor of the porch.

The attendant paused in her sweeping and looked up. “Please don’t do that.”

Malo narrowed her eyes at her. The woman scoffed, quietly shook her head, and continued sweeping.

I smiled wider. “And they have confirmed you’ve stayed here, on leave? You, who are so talented at disappearing?”

“They have had their eyes elsewhere, let us say. Who can say what they know? Nobody knows anything here, anymore.”

“But now your leave is over, yes? What shall you do?”

Her glow of triumph faded. “That is a good question, for it is another thing nobody knows. The naukari are flooding into the Empire, either by official means or otherwise. We wardens are kept here to keep the peace, but we know we cannot stay. Some seek another role in the Empire. But even if they take me, I am unsure what awaits me within the rings. I do not have a medikker’s eyes or nose, nor that of a reagent-brewer, an ascolytic. And I am most uncouth, I think, for even the Outer Rim and the third ring.”

“Having been to those places, I’m not so sure,” I said. “But things are changing, surely, and shall change yet more. They still plan to move the marrow by sea, true?”

“Yes, and sooner than you think!” Again, she spat a gob of black spittle onto the porch.

“ Please do not do that!” cried the attendant.

“Shut up!” snapped Malo.

The attendant, scandalized, shook her head, huffed, and continued sweeping.

Malo turned back to me. “That was what I came to tell you. The hydricyst is scheduled to sail into the bay today. It shall be quite a sight! The fucking thing is practically the size of an island, they say! Will you watch it arrive with me?”

“That may offer little fun, since with your eyes, you’ll see it well before I do. But—certainly. Let me check on Ana first.”

I slipped inside. I heard the attendant say behind me, “No. No! No more!” followed by a string of swears in Pithian.

—

I walked to Ana’s cradle, as I had for the past mornings, but this time I found it empty and neatly made up. When I stopped a medikker to ask what had happened, he seemed confused.

“Why, she asked to be taken away!” he told me. “She practically forced one of our attendants to do so, saying she had something to witness this morning. She did say you would know someone who could find her. Especially, ah—well, since she refused to partake in our final bathing, she said…”

I gritted my teeth, thanked him, and went back out to find Malo now in a full-throated argument with the attendant regarding her right to spit outdoors where she pleased. I took Malo by the arm as she was midsentence and pulled her away. “Come,” I said. “Let’s go.”

“What!” said Malo, outraged. “Get your damn hands off me! I need to work up enough spittle to color this prude’s eye!”

“Ana has left,” I said, “and she apparently intends for you to track her. Can you catch her scent?”

“Eh? I mean…certainly, I can, if you give me a moment. What game is this she plays? I want to see the goddamn boat come in!”

“I’ve no idea,” I said. “But let’s find her first.”

—

It took Malo no time to find Ana’s scent—“The woman smells like an Old Town beach at low tide,” she muttered—and we followed her trail west up a short set of cliffs overlooking Yarrowdale. Finally we came to a rocky outcropping, where a very nervous-looking medikker attendant was pacing back and forth. As I made the last step, I heard Ana’s voice: “Ah! I believe we have been found. You are dismissed, sir! I appreciate your accompanying me on this lovely jaunt!”

“Praise Sanctum!” sighed the attendant, and he scrambled back down to the city.

I took in the scene. Ana sat beneath a short, crooked tree, dressed in her old black dress, her eyes bound. She faced out to sea with her head cocked and mouth slightly open, as if she was listening very hard and trying to catch a melody we could not hear.

“Ma’am,” I said as I stepped over to her. “This…this all seems extremely unwise.”

“Oh?” she said. “How so, Din?”

“Half the reason you were put in the medikker’s bay was due to exhaustion, yes? And didn’t that exhaustion come from too much exposure to too many environs?”

“That, and other things,” she said. “But I did my math upon awakening and guessed that the hydricyst would be in today! Is that not so? I did not wish to miss it.”

“A good point,” said Malo. “And this is a fine place to watch.”

“Ah!” said Ana, grinning. “Good morning, Signum Malo! How fares the noble kingdom of Yarrow?”

“Noble? Feh.” Malo spat. “It has not been noble in living memory. But whatever it is now, it is all falling to piss and rubble.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. First there was only one king, old and stupid. Now there are dozens, young and even stupider, all trying to kill each other. I pray they each succeed and empty the land of royalty.”

“A very old story,” Ana sniffed, “with a very predictable outcome. Thank you for helping Din find me! Yet I wish to ask, Malo—could you leave us for a moment? I have something that I wish to discuss with him.”

Malo shrugged. “I shall go to the cliffs above you. The view is better up there, anyway.”

I peered up the cliffs. “There’s a great deal of seabird nests up there. They won’t be pleased.”

“I’ll not let a bunch of fucking birds stop me,” said Malo indignantly, and she scurried up the cliffs with the grace and speed of a mountain goat.

Ana patted the ground beside her. I sat, glancing at her sidelong. She seemed the Ana I’d always known: skinny, sharp, grinning, with her bone-white hair tied up in a messy bun. I wondered what to say and could think of nothing.

She broke the silence first: “Have you gotten my post while I rested, Din? What have I missed?”

“Mostly letters from various officials pleading for you to tell them what has happened here, ma’am. Others seem totally ignorant and ask you for advice on various matters.”

“Dull,” she proclaimed. “I shall deal with them in due time. What else?”

“Well,” I said slowly. “It seems the Usini Lending Group has nearly collapsed, ma’am…”

“Ah! Has it?”

“Yes. And…I cannot help but feel that your hand is in that somewhere, ma’am.”

“Me?” she said archly. “Oh, I did nothing, Din.”

“Somehow I find that difficult to believe, ma’am.”

“What could I do, for I was here in Yarrowdale the entire time! But…” Her grin broadened. “I will admit that there were many within the Iudex who have been looking very hard at the Usini Lending Group for some time. Lots of rumors about abruptly renegotiating agreements and harassing our officers, and so on…When you reported to me that you had experienced the same, well. I simply sent a few letters. A nudge, as it were, in the right direction.”

“But why? You wished me to stay, didn’t you? To turn away from the Legion, and remain your investigator?”

“Well, I promised you two revelations, boy,” she said. “For one of them, you could not comprehend it if there were obstacles before your choice. I have removed them, so you may now choose freely and honestly. But, before I hear your choice, I must ask, Din…what does the ocean look like?” She flicked a hand at the sea before her. “Describe the sight for me. For I fear I shall never be so close to the sea again.”

I eyed the endless, blank horizon. From here I could turn my head from side to side and see no works of humankind, save the Shroud, nor any speck of soil or stone. “It is rather…flat, ma’am.”

“Flat? Is that the fullest extent of your poetic capacities?”

“I have no other word for it,” I sighed. “It is enormous, and flat, and empty. And though I know it moves, the farther I look, the less movement I see.”

“Ah,” she said softly. “And yet we know it moves, in manners both huge and hidden, far beneath its surface. And we know, of course, what swims in its deeps.”

A tremor in my belly. I looked down at the steady ground beneathme.

“It is good to place oneself before the vast expanse of this world,” said Ana. “The ocean cannot tell the difference between a rich man and a poor one, nor one full of happiness, or despair. To those waves, all are so terribly small.”

“Being an imperial from the Outer Rim,” I said, “I need little help in feeling such a thing, ma’am.”

“A good point.” She cocked her head. “Hm…it all makes me wonder—perhaps that is why we invented them in the first place.”

“Them?”

“Kings, of course. Perhaps we wished to make the ancient and divine mortal, to render the infinite in flesh and form. How reassuring that would be! And yet, a fool’s game, as we have so thoroughly learned here. Our emperor wisely sleeps in his Sanctum, still and silent, hardly more than a spirit. We need no more kingly stuff than that! Not from the emperor, nor the kings of Yarrow…” She slowly turned her blindfolded face to me. “Nor anyone else.”

I studied her and felt countless meanings hidden in these words. It was like so many great imperial things: so much was mystery, while the rest was politely unspeakable.

“How do you mean, ma’am?” I asked quietly.

“I mean, the Empire has granted our folk many blessings, Din,” she purred. “Blessings of the flesh, the mind, the spirit. Any of these blessings might lead one to imagine that they are of regal element. And that is why we must have a watchman among us, to ensure that these folk never forget the truth.”

“What truth?”

“That though a person’s mind may be shaped differently, their hearts and souls are all too human. That makes them strong—but it also makes them weak. And petty. And predictable.” She flourished a hand, like an actor performing a monologue. “I simply wonder—who shall that watchman be?”

Finally I could bear it no more. “Ohh, enough!” I said. “You can stop your lecturing, Ana.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You know what choice I’ve made. You knew it before you ever slept.” I turned back to the sea. “I shall not go to the East. I shall stay with you, ma’am, and continue on in this strange work.”

“Oh?” Ana said cautiously. “Truly? Why?”

“Because…what you said was true. I wish to keep an Empire worth defending.” I eyed the rooftops of Yarrowdale, tiny and cheerful where they clung to the shore. “After all we saw here, that feels a hard fight. Perhaps even harder than what one might see at the sea walls. Though it does come with a sight less glory. That was the first of your revelations, yes?”

“True enough,” she admitted. “You are a quick pupil. But I wonder…what would the person you left in Talagray think of this choice?”

I imagined him then: Kepheus, so tall and broad, yet always leaning crookedly against a wall or door, his shabby smile on his face, his eyes so understanding. It was he who’d spoken to me of service most of all, there in Talagray, yet only now, after I had been so long apart from him, had I come to truly comprehend it.

“I think he knows what I have chosen,” I said quietly. “Wherever he may be.”

There was a beat of silence. Then she reached out, fumbled to find me, took me by the hand, and squeezed it: the first time she had ever done so in my memory. “Then I thank you, Dinios Kol,” she said quietly. “I hope I shall be an instrument of service to you, just as much as you are to me. And…I can hardly think of a better watchman than you. I shall keep you close—for though you and I are small, together we shall forge grand things indeed.”

I bowed my head. I felt my heart almost burst with tension from so many things going unsaid in that moment. Was she what I suspected her to be? Was she asking, however indirectly, for me to watch over her, and ensure that her own mind did not go awry, just as had happened to Pyktis? Was this the role she had planned for me all this time?

But I knew she could not answer questions about that second revelation, or at least, she could not now.

“Thank you for the scarf, ma’am,” I said softly. “It’s very nice.”

“Ah, that is good to hear,” said Ana. “It is the least I could do, given how much I have put you through. Perhaps we need better allies in the Iudex, yes, Din?”

“Allies?”

“Yes…” She leaned toward me. “Do you know, there is an investigator I’ve aided in the Outer Rim canton of Ashradel who has lost four assistants in the past three years! A tragic thing, but perhaps not a surprising one, given that Ashradel is a terribly murderous place. Why, he asked me for assistance in finding a replacement just last month. So…” She gestured above us. “Tell me. How might she look in blue?”

I looked up at the cliffs. Malo sat perched on the edge of a rock dappled thickly with birdshit, chewing her hina root and squinting at the seabirds, who wheeled about her, shrieking angrily at her intrusion. One grew too near, and she flicked a pebble at it, striking it in the belly, and she laughed wickedly as the bird twirled away.

“I think I fear for the knaves and criminals of Ashradel, ma’am, if an investigator like Malo is to hunt them.”

Ana laughed. “Quite so! I think she shall flourish there. Perhaps so much that our paths might cross again, someday.”

Then a shout from Malo above: “To the east! It comes!”

“Ahh,” said Ana with relish. “Tell me, Din! Tell me what it looks like, as the Fifth Empire begins!”

I shielded my eyes and squinted, parsing through the sunlight and the glittering seas. It emerged from the horizon, black and tall and shimmering with flags, bedecked with bombards and glistening bright, a ship larger than I could have ever conceived in all my days, a construction vast enough to split any wave and seek any shore.

I leaned close to Ana and began to speak.