Page 76 of A Trade of Blood

“The pattern. The shapes in the trees.”

“Yes, sir. It’s…upsetting, for some reason.”

“Yes,” he murmured. “It is evident to spatiasts like myself. Only here can you feel the full power of the Khanum…A strange thing, to be adrift in a creation wrought by a mind you cannot comprehend! It’s like studying a tapestry, and attempting to imagine the loom that made it, only for it to defy you. You and I are hardly more than beasts when put against such an intelligence. Yet keep your eyes open! I’m sure our killer went this way. I can see signs of it in the path before us.”

We continued through the wood, which only seemed to grow darker and greater with each step. I felt as if we were in a mine deep in the earth, traveling through some tiny crevice, unable to see what lay ahead.

Then Tauri stopped. “Here,” he whispered. “Here, hidden in the edge of the seam!”

We grouped about him. He was crouched beside something in a small ditch beside the path. Someone had cast a rough rope net over it, though the fibers of the net had been painted purple and gray. If we hadn’t been carrying such a bright lantern it would have been nearly invisible.

“Check for graft trips,” said Tauri softly. “Or lines, or triggers.”

The Orbiis officers knelt and inspected the net carefully, peering over each thread of fabric as if it had been spun of fine gold. Finding no threat, they pulled the net away.

Beneath it lay a large trunk, wrought of planed wood and latched shut, though it did not bear any lock. Again, the Orbiis officers studied the trunk, tapping on it and feeling it, their eyes trembling and quaking as they did so. I guessed that, as spatiasts, their augmentations granted them some advantage in manipulating physical matter: I knew their Sublime type was remarkably skilled at craftsmanship,at least. Then, with another nod, they braced themselves, unlatched the case, and carefully opened it. Then they held the lantern aloft so we could peer inside.

Within the case lay several objects, all carefully arranged at the bottom, as if waiting for us. Two of them were dreadfully familiar: a set of pipes, each about as long as a man’s forearm, with strange fluting structures built into their necks.

My eyes fluttered as I compared them to my memory of the tool that Velona Armenta had wielded to make her little cat Coral dance. “It’s like the drokha-cat pipes,” I said softly, “but different. More complex.”

“Because they are crafted to dominate a much more complex mind, I’m sure,” said Tauri.

He knelt and plucked up the next object, which lay beside the pipes: a small glass vial containing cloudy water. It bore a small tag of paper, with a date: some four months ago.

“It’s water,” said Tauri softly, “infected with the web. No doubt it’s the strain used to infect humans. More poison, then, to infect another water source!” A sour laugh. “Very thoughtful of them to date it! It must expire eventually in a sealed container…”

Then he fished out the final object in the trunk: a small, slender parchment book. He flipped through it so we could see.

“A music book,” he murmured. “With each tune notated…of course! Here. This one is the awakening tone! This wakes the fungus up, makes it infect the brain further, so it will be receptive to conditioning. Then these songs here—they are conditioning tones. Unlabeled, because the pipe-player can use them as they wish. Each tune crafted so they’re not at all alike, so you can link any behavior you wish to it and force the host to perform them without confusion.” He shook his head. “They areinstructions.A guidebook on how to dominate the human mind once it’s been infected with the web…”

He flipped to the last page. This tune was different: it was drawn very clearly, and unlike the others it was labeled with one word—LYSIS.

“Lysis,” I said. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” said Tauri. “Lysis is a…a medikker term, for when an infected body tissue breaks down, or bursts. I am unfamiliar with its use in herding cats with the web. And here, at the bottom, another note—NOT IMMEDIATE.”

I peered closer at the note with him. “Written in block lettering, of course,” I said. “So the handwriting couldn’t give the author away…”

“Yes. They were clever. But I’m troubled it’s here at all—because presumably the killer alreadyknewhow the web works, yes? So why write instructions? Unless…”

“You intend to educate another in its use,” I said quietly. “Yes.”

“This is a cache, then. A tool kit prepared for someone to find, along with all the instructions necessary for its use.”

“And for all we know, there are more caches out there, hidden in the wood.”

Tauri groaned. “There is more than one killerat least,then. More, we still don’t know where the damned webcomesfrom! How did they produce a strain that affects humans? It would have required a tremendous source of human cadavers to do so, and I know of no such thing! To create it without that is beyond all the arts of the Apoths and Orbiis.”

My gaze wandered among the pipes, the cloudy vial of water, the booklet in Tauri’s hands. “Even Burilis Burav? We’ve more reason than ever to suspect him now, even in death.”

“I don’t know. As I said before, he came well before my time. If he’d been a genius with the Apothetikal practices, I feel I would have heard of it.”

“Is there any more in the booklet, sir?”

“No. Just these songs, and…”

He flipped through the pages again—yet this time a narrow slip of parchment fell loose and went flittering down to rest at our feet.