Page 55 of A Drop of Corruption

“Well…no. He is over four hundred years old, maintained through arts I do not know. And he is not a god, but Khanum. The only living Khanum now—the last of the first imperial race, the firstaltered people. He hardly ever comes out of his Sanctum anymore. Some don’t even think he’s really alive.”

Malo, now irritated to still be acting as translator, rendered this into Pithian as well. Then she sighed as another question was voiced and glared at the man who’d asked. “Now they want to know if the old Khanum were actually real,” she said.

“If they what?” I said, surprised.

“Many think they are invented,” she said, again shrugging. “Stories of some wise, brilliant race that vanished? It is like a spirit’s tale.”

I looked to Tangis for support, but he gave me a wry smile and a shake of the head—I’ll take no part in this.

“Well…the original Khanum were real,” I said reluctantly. “But they did not vanish. Rather, the first imperials changed themselves, until they became something not human, and declined to nothing.”

Malo translated this. Her words were met with blank stares.

“They don’t understand that shit,” she said to me flatly. “No one could. Say more.”

“Well, they…they became smarter and stronger and wiser than any human being,” I said. “So clever they almost became incomprehensible. But they also became like mules—a different species, unable to breed with anyone. They could not reproduce, so they died out. The emperor is the last of them. We Sublimes are like a…an imitation of their likeness. We can only do a fragment of what they could do, a piece of what their minds were capable of.”

Malo translated this lengthy answer. Now the wardens fell to squabbling, with Sabudara speaking indignantly. She held her hands up about six smallspan apart, as if measuring something invisible. I began to feel a humiliating dread.

“Ahh,” I said. “What are they discussing now?”

“This might be an issue in translation…” said Malo. “The word for ‘mule’ in Pithian is the same as ‘gelding.’ Now they debate if you are an incomplete man.” She nodded to Sabudara. “Some testify on your behalf.”

Tangis, who had been sipping from a small pot of water, burst into a riotous coughing fit.

“I am complete,” I said, stung. “And all functions well. But I do not engender children.”

Malo translated again. All the wardens stopped talking. The female ones seemed most intrigued and studied me appraisingly—including Sabudara, who I realized must have been willing to leave all to fate when she bedded me. The men, however, shot me looks both alarmed and resentful.

“I, ah, am no longer sure if I enjoy being an object of curiosity,” I said to Malo.

“I know I do not enjoy acting as middleman for it!” she snapped. “Titan’s taint! Bring one Iudex along, and they all become as fucking children!”

She rattled off some Pithian to her wardens, and the women nodded derisively—Yes, yes, we know.Then she turned to me. “I have told them what I told you:nofucking on a raid,” she said sternly. “If one of them tries to mount you, shove the idiot off into the water. All right?”

I drew away from the wardens, stuck a pipe into my mouth, and lay back on the boat, watching the stars through the quivering canopy.

Chapter 22

I was awoken not bythe light of dawn but by the tramp of many feet and much whispering. I cracked my eyes, wondering if I dreamed, and saw the wardens stepping around me on the boat to peer out at the river past the cliff’s edge.

I sat up. I could barely make out the form of Tangis sitting on the deck across from me. I whispered, “What’s going on?”

“Wardens say they smell something dead in the water,” Tangis said quietly. “Something floating down to us. Their noses say it’s human. They can’t see it yet. But it’s close.”

I clambered to my feet, peering at the trees about me. I thought I could make out slashes of pink light leaking through the leaves, suggesting dawn was near. I hissed Malo’s name at the clump of wardens at the prow of the boat until she finally broke away.

“What is it?” Malo demanded.

“Tangis says your people smell a body.”

“Yes, Khusabu and Sabudara do. They’ve the finest noses. But it’s not here yet, though it’s coming.” She sniffed the air. “Ah…I think I have it now. About half a league upstream. I wonder why no scavenger has taken it yet…” She sniffed again. “Yet it smells…strange.”

I summoned the map in my mind. “It will be coming…downstream from where the camp is, yes? The very one we wish to raid today?”

“It is. But bodies in the water about a camp is not uncommon. Perhaps it is our impostor. Maybe someone got as sick of his shit as I.”

I joined her at the prow of the boat, waiting. Dawn light slowly filtered through the trees, and soon I could make out the far bank. Then it came.