“Working in the garden. Harvesting legumes.” I watch hands that aren’t mine placing thin green pods into a simple stone bowl. Slow, practised movements. I see what Tash sees but exert no influence over where he looks, nor attempt to access any of his other senses. Sight is easy, as long as I keep my eyes closed, but commingling other senses gets unpleasantly confusing.
“Can you imbue some? Keep them fresh?”
“Probably not.” We’ve discovered that if I initially imbue Tash with enough Will, I’m then able to use him to imbue other objects. Small things, thus far. And relatively pointless, given how Will works here. But as Caeror keeps pointing out, it’s a good mental exercise for improving my efficiency.
“Alright.” Ulciscor’s brother is sanguine about the refusal. “Then tell himto take a handful to his rooms, and forget that he has. But that after we return and you drop the imbuing, he should go and fetch them for us.”
“That won’t work.”
“We’ve observed patterns. We need to make sure they’re rules.”
I exhale, but Caeror’s right, and I order Tash as he suggests. Watch as the iunctus pockets some legumes, stands, and leaves the garden. We’ve been doing these experiments regularly for the past couple of weeks; it’s important to know whether my instructions will remain, or whether they last only as long as I’m imbuing. Instructions to forget something seem permanent, regardless of whether I’ve maintained the connection. But commands to perform a task after the imbuing is removed haven’t yet worked.
“How’s your loss ratio today?”
“Better.” Harmonic connections are difficult, costly to establish. It’s likely one of the reasons Ka seems to directly control only Gleaners and another type of iunctii called Overseers, while the remainder in the city, apparently, remain nominally free. “Still using most of the Vitaerium’s Will, though.”
“But you’re alright?”
“I’m alright.” It was hard, the first day we did this; using so much Will meant that my body was far less protected from the toxic atmosphere and blistering heat, and I found myself struggling for breath several times. The fact that I’m not today is an encouraging sign of progress. “I think I’ve—”
“Vis,” interrupts Caeror, his tone suddenly intent.
It takes me a few moments to refocus from Tash’s vision to my own, then spot the line of dots we’ve been waiting for crawling away from the massive black pyramid, little more than specks from this distance. Most of the tiny figures shuffling along beneath the burning sun are swathed in white, making them even more difficult to make out. Only a single one, leading the column, is clothed in black.
“A dozen?” I guess.
“At least. Looks like they’re a mining excursion.” We watch as the line drifts placidly along, and I spot the empty sled as it’s hauled behind them.
“Any chance we can use that? I could try and sneak in with the group as they go back. I need to pretend to be a iunctus anyway, once I’m in there.”
“We could wrap you in white and get you onto the end of the line easily enough, but it won’t matter. Even if you somehow managed to get to the Overseer without the real iunctii saying anything—and they absolutely would—theentrance itself is sealed. Guarded by more Overseers who will check the faces of everyone coming in and out. You’ll either be a captive or a fugitive the moment you try.”
The distant black blight rises sharply against the ocean of white, broken only by the river winding through the valley. The Infernis, Caeror says is its name. It vanishes into Duat itself before reappearing out the other side. No greenery grows around its edges.
“What about the water? From what you’ve said, a Vitaerium should let me get by without breathing. And it flows right through the middle—”
“Poison.Somuch poison.” Caeror’s interruption is certain. “Even with a Vitaerium, it will melt the skin from your bones. And if you had enough Vitaeria to survive that … you know the Seawall around Solivagus?” I nod. “Yusef said there are similar columns across the Infernis, both its entrance and exit inside. So if you tried, you’d end up trapped at the bottom of the river. In agony. Possibly for a long, long time.”
“So you’re saying it’s a maybe.”
“Let’s call it a secondary option.”
I give a small smile, though he won’t be able to see it. This place is a true nightmare, all heat and horror and constant, terrifying threat. And yet even after seven years of living it, seven years of waiting, Ulciscor’s curly-haired brother has handled my training with nothing but grace and encouragement and genial wit.
Patient consideration, too. Silence when it’s been needed. He hasn’t pressed me about my reaction to the goldenmutalisdoor. Hasn’t insisted that I try again, though I know how important it is. It’s become something of a symbol, between us. We both know that when I finally go back and face it, I will be telling him that I’m ready.
I was a prince of Suus, eleven years old when he got here.Eleven. And he is still pushing, still driven to stop the deaths of the people he loves, even though he will never see them again.
I have trusted unwillingly, miserly, from necessity alone. But he has earned more than that.
I come to a decision.
“There was a naumachia, last year,” I begin quietly.
NEITHER OF US SPEAK FOR A LONG TIME, AFTER I HAVEfinished. The hot, covering grit trickles and itches. My role has been truncated in the retelling, morphed to become much more of a passive observer who found out the details later. No need to explain Suus or the Anguis. No need to give Caeror cause to doubt me, doubt my desire to help save the people we left behind. But the rest I lay bare. There is no lie and no exaggeration to my trauma.
“Gleaner patrol,” says Caeror suddenly, alert.
