Page 107 of A Trade of Blood

We stopped short when we saw it. It was, more or less, precisely what Ana had described: a huge stone hand, rising from the earth, extending into the boughs as if offering a gift to the skies. It was without a doubt the most beautiful sculpture I had ever seen: something about the lifelike quality of its fingers, its knuckles, the positioning of its joints imbued the thing with a powerful sense of vitality, even though each digit was surely twenty-five span long.

“We are in the right place, then,” said Tauri. “A relief!”

“I didn’t think spatiasts got lost, sir,” I muttered.

“In this place, many things can happen,” he said, bemused. “Strange to think that almost no one has seen this sight in centuries—save, apparently, Burav and his son, if they also walked these paths.”

We slowly wound our way along the seam, which passed very close to the massive hand. Then Tauri raised a hand, and we stopped once more.

“There is something in the hand,” he said quietly.

I pulled out my spyglass to see. He was right: the sculpture was not just of a hand, but a hand holding something. A human form.

Or, perhaps, someone was hiding there within its giant palm.

“A person,” I said softly. I squinted to see, then sighed with relief. “No, no. Astoneperson. It’s part of the sculpture.”

“Thank Sanctum,” breathed Tauri. “I…I nearly believed it was an ambush.”

My relief tapered off. Though the stone figure was part of the sculpture, there was something distinctly unsettling about it. The stone person stood in the palm of the hand, arms outstretched, face raised to the sky—but was it singing, or screaming? Was that joy on its face, or fear, or even pain?

And there, written upon its chest, were words in the old Tala tongue.

I struggled with reading letters, especially ones of a different language, and had always found speaking them aloud to help me. I did so now, slowly saying: “Asiv ti aytaykio myailo na anthiseai.”

“Wh-what?” said Tauri, startled.

“It’s the words written on the statue’s chest, sir. I can still read them, though they must be centuries old.”

“That…that’s the old Tala tongue,” he said. “I am not sure I am translating correctly…I wish I had a lingua with us.”

I grimaced and browsed my memories of speech. Translating spoken word using memory alone was tricky, and often laden with mistakes. Yet I had taken care to learn some of the old tongue of my folk, and I slowly matched my memories of the sounds with the words I had just spoken aloud.

“Allow the stolen thoughts…no, no,” I said, shaking my head. “No, it is…Let the wayward mind bloom.”

Tauri turned around on the path and gazed at me, his masked head wreathed by the silvery smokes of the thurible. “It says the mindblooms?”

“I believe that’s what it says, yes.”

“The mind? You’re sure?”

“Yes, sir?”

He stared at me in horror. It took me a moment to realize why.

“The mind…” I said slowly. “Or…or the skull, yes. It could be that instead.”

“Either way,” he murmured, “it has an awful familiarity to me! Are we to think that…”

He did not say it aloud. My eyes shook, and I recalled what Ana had said to Velona Armenta:I am familiar with one story, of the Daljeni figure known as Qul. How he came upon a wretched man, and sang him a new fate to afflict him for the rest of his days…

“Sang him a new fate,” I whispered. “Or, perhaps, sang until his mind bloomed…”

“Stop!” hissed Tauri. “We will not speak on this now! It’s one thing to discuss the ancients in chambers of our own making, but quite another to do so here!”

With a quick, furtive wave, we continued down the path.

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