Page 3 of A Drop of Corruption

She returned to the wooden box on the table, twisted three bronze clasps running along a seam at the side, then tugged at the top. With a loud clattering, the top and walls fell away.

Within was not a body, nor anything resembling a human limb, but a large, oblong brick of a very unusual moss, with stiff, bonelike tendrils all densely grown together. The brick was perfectly rectangular, having grown to fill the interior of the box—or so I supposed.Malo gently pushed the brick of moss off the bottom slab of wood until it rested free on the table.

I stared at the brick of moss, my thoughts lingering on that word:remains.

The powerful, musky odor in the room intensified, and with it rose an unpleasant burbling in my stomach. I kept my face still but thought,Damn it all, she was right about the fish.

“Won’t be a moment,” said Malo.

Humming, she paced to a shelf and picked up a tray carrying many small knives and a large, corked blue pot. Then she returned to the brick of moss, uncorked the pot, and poured a thin stream of oil over the brick with a flamboyant flick, like a cook greasing a hot pan. Then she corked the bottle, set it aside, and began rubbing the oil along the brick with her gloved hands, massaging it into the many crevices of the tendrils.

“How does this work?” I asked.

“The moss?” she said. “You’ve not seen it before?”

“Most of the bodies I’ve reviewed have either been quite fresh or long since gone.”

“A lucky thing, for you,” she said. “It has always been calledossuary moss—though it is not truly a moss but a predatory fungus. It lives in hollows in the earth, lining the chambers there, waiting for creatures to fall in. When they do, the moss stings them, paralyzing them, and slowly grows to swallow them, like a cocoon. That’s when thetrulyfun stuff happens.” She grunted as she shifted the brick. “It secretes a fluid, cleaning the organism of the many pestilences that cause rot. Almost like curing it, really, so it can then consume all the tissues, with no waste. The breed we’ve altered no longer consumes flesh, of course. It simply leaves us with a sample that stays fresh for up to two years.”

I glanced at the many cabinets lining the hall behind me. “Samples?”

Malo grinned at me. In the darkness of the laboratory, with her eyes and nose stained so purple, her face had a skeletal look. “We are Apoths, Kol. We make use of many tissues. Some of them our own.”

There was another putrid wave of musk. The oil had now soaked into the moss’s hide until it attained a slightly translucent sheen. I glimpsed a ghostly white mass at its core.

“Please tell me what you know about the murder,” I said.

She chuckled bleakly. “A more pleasant subject, maybe. But only somewhat.”

—

“Dead man’s nameis Immunis Mineti Sujedo,” Malo began, “of the Imperial Treasury. Hailed from the second ring of the Empire as a member of a Treasury delegation, here to confer with the king of Yarrow onhigh imperial business.” The words dripped with poisonous sarcasm. “He was last of his delegation to come, arriving just over two weeks ago—the tenth of the month of Hajnal. He was met at the waterfront by Apoth guards, seemed in good health and high spirits, and was escorted to his lodgings. Just as we shall do for your immunis, when she comes.”

I paused. I had already known much of this, but not that last bit. “Why was he escorted by guards?” I asked.

“Because he was here to talk about taxes,” she said. “And everybody hates the tax man—especially here in Yarrow. Which is no safe place.”

The sight of the armored boats so stubbled with arrowheads flashed in my mind.

“I see,” I said quietly.

“Guards got him moved into his rooms,” continued Malo. “Then he visited the Treasury bank in the city, again escorted by guards. He did some business there and returned just before sunset. When he got back to his lodgings, he said he was not feeling well after his journey. He seemed to be weak of stomach.”

I nodded sternly, trying not to think of my own rebellious innards.

“He had the guards send a notice to his Treasury delegation leader saying he would be staying in that night,” Malo said. “Then he called for dinner, yet ate little, and went to bed. He was due to visit with the other members of his delegation the next morning, but…he did notappear. A message was sent to Sujedo’s rooms, requesting his presence. When there was no answer, the guards went in and found the man had…Well. He’d been abducted in the night!”

“Abducted?” I asked, surprised. “The orders I was given indicated he’d gone missing.”

“That is not as anyone here would put it,” she said. “Gone missingwould make one think he disappeared while moving from one place to another. But a guard was posted at his door all night, and the door itself remained locked throughout, and the man never left the room. The only sign that anything had gone amiss was his bed, which showed signs of a struggle and was bloodied and mussed.”

“Bloodied?” I asked.

“Yes, as if he’d been attacked or stabbed as he slept. Stranger still—the windows of his room were all still locked from the inside! No signs of tampering, no breaking, nothing. No one has any idea how the attacker got in or out. And besides the man himself, nothing within had been taken. I went to his rooms and gave the airs there a good sniff.” She tapped her purpled nose, apparently indifferent to the oil on her gloved fingertip. “I can track a squirrel through wet forest for over a league with little more than a tuft of fur. Yet when I went to Sujedo’s room, I foundnoscent but his, and those of the servants. He was alone in his chamber for all the time before we found him gone. How he vanished from it, I cannot say.”

I glanced at the brick of moss, now gleaming with oil. “And when and where did you find the remains?”

“We discovered them on the fifteenth of Hanjal, five days after his arrival and disappearance,” she said. “So, ten days ago now, in case you have forgotten what date it is with all your travels.”