The Tainted Cup, page 37
Fayazi convulsed like she’d been slapped.
“Surely you’ve thought that,” whispered Ana. “Surely you’ve known that’s what they planned. But…why don’t you ask her? Why don’t you go ahead and ask your twitch right now?”
A loud, thundering silence.
“D-Dolabra?” said Vashta. “What are you…what…”
Ana turned her face to the axiom, who stared back at her with her cold, dark eyes.
“For it’s you, isn’t it?” said Ana. “You’re no axiom. You’re the twitch. And it is you who’s here to threaten Madam Haza’s life. And it’s you who killed Immunis Nusis just last night.”
* * *
—
ANOTHER STUNNED SILENCE.
The axiom smiled and laughed, a high, cold sound. “You’re mad. She’s mad. This woman is absolutely mad!”
“What’s the square root of 21,316?” demanded Ana.
“Wh-what?” said the axiom, startled. “Why are you—”
“The answer is 146,” said Ana. “What’s 98 to the power of four?”
The axiom was silent.
“The answer is 92,236,816,” said Ana. “What about 92,236,816 divided by 21,316? Can you do that?”
Silence.
“Can you?” demanded Vashta. “Can you not?” She looked to Fayazi. “Why can she not?”
Fayazi began to shake but did not answer. The axiom’s cold, dead stare grew even colder.
“I think the answer is a little over 4,327,” said Ana. “But don’t quote me.” She grinned. “You bear the heralds of an axiom—but you can’t do math at all, can you? You needed a reason to hang about Fayazi while Din talked to her, to make sure she said the right things. And what gentrywoman goes anywhere without their Sublimes? You couldn’t pose as an engraver—she already had one of those—but axiom, well…Why would anyone pose complex math problems to Fayazi Haza? I wouldn’t have thought twice on it—but then Din asked a few very simple mathematical questions, and you said nothing. Nothing at all. And that was curious to me.” Her smile faded. “It’s you. You killed Aristan. And Suberek. And Nusis. It was all you.”
The axiom was silent. Ana began moving back, but she started speaking louder so the whole room could hear.
“The Hazas sent you here to clean up,” she said. “But the real mission was to get back that damn reagents key—the one filled with the cure for dappleglass. You learned from one of Kaygi’s many dirty sources that Nusis just happened to have a reagents key that had been recovered from Rona Aristan. You knew right away what it was. And with the leviathan approaching, there was no time. You got desperate. You went to her office, forced her to open the safe, and killed her—unaware that she and I had already swapped out the keys, and I had the real one in the chest in my rooms. Right upstairs, right now.”
I blinked at that, confused again. That couldn’t be so. Yet Ana kept talking.
“Very gutsy, to come here,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d do it. I made sure not to ask for you at all, worried I might spook you. But you’re very loyal to the Haza clan. They told you to keep watch over their little sister, and that’s what you’re here to do.”
Fayazi was trembling now. Miljin stood and drew his sword.
I shot to my feet and did the same. The Legionnaires about us took that as a sign and drew their own blades.
The twitch’s cold, dark eyes flicked around the room, unnaturally quickly, counting us all.
“Fayazi?” said Ana. “You can move away now. Hurry, please.”
With a strangled cry, Fayazi Haza shot to her feet, shook off the twitch’s grip, and ran across the room. She pressed her back against the far wall and stared back at the twitch, sobbing hysterically.
Vashta looked on, stunned. Then she blinked and steeled herself. “Miljin?”
“Yes, ma’am?” said Miljin, his green blade raised.
“Arrest this person,” said Vashta. “Bind her hands and feet. Immediately.”
“Kol!” called Miljin. “Your engraver’s bonds!”
My hands shaking, I unhooked them from my belt, then tossed them to Miljin. He and the Legionnaires advanced on the twitch, blades held high. She stayed seated behind the table with her hands in her lap, totally still except for her eyes, which kept darting about, reading the room.
“There’s too many of us,” said Miljin to her. He handed the bonds off to a Legionnaire, keeping his own blade pointed at the twitch. “Too many, even for you.”
“I know,” said the twitch quietly. She raised her hands.
“Good,” said Miljin. He kept approaching, making sure his blade was angled toward her. “Keep raising them. Slowly now. Slowly. Slowly…”
I felt myself trembling. A fluttering to my eyes, and I recalled what Miljin had said: You meet a twitch, there’s no training I can offer that’d save you…They were supposed to be unbeatable in combat—for about a minute a day, mind. After that, their muscles wore out and they had to recover…
Then came the awareness of all the folk that this person had killed: Aristan, and Suberek, and poor Nusis…And perhaps Ana’s previous assistant as well, for all I knew.
“Slowly,” said Miljin. “Slowly give me your hands…”
The twitch extended her arms. Miljin nodded to the Legionnaire on his right, who took her by the arm and snapped one end of the bonds about her wrist.
Then they all froze.
A sound from out the window, out in the city, starting low and then slowly growing.
Bells. First dozens of them, then hundreds of them, their high, raucous peals falling over the countryside like a storm.
“Tocsins,” said Vashta hoarsely. “Tocsin bells. But we haven’t yet seen…”
We all looked to the window, and the east.
For a moment there was nothing but mottled clouds; but then a small, flittering green star rose in the distance; and it was joined by another and another, arcing into the darkness and leaving trails of smoke behind, until all the skies seemed swarming with bright, flickering green lights.
“Green flares,” Vashta said quietly. “A leviathan is here.”
The twitch moved.
CHAPTER 38
| | |
I DID NOT REALLY see what the twitch did. The movement was so quick it was barely perceivable, like the flit of a moth’s wing in the shadows. But then there was a scream, and when I whirled to see, there was blood.
The Legionnaire on the twitch’s left was falling to the ground, blood pouring from her throat. The one on the twitch’s right suddenly gasped and coughed, a dark splotch spreading on his chest, and collapsed to his knees. Through the spray of blood I saw her, this dark figure with cold eyes, my engraver’s bonds swinging from one wrist and a long stiletto clutched in her hands, its blade so thin it seemed hardly more than a length of black hair. Where she had gotten her weapon from, I could not tell; she had moved too fast for me to see any of it.
Miljin brought his green blade down on the twitch, and the sword tore through the fretvine floor like it was made of straw. Yet the twitch was already gone, leaping away, her robes rippling as she moved like an acrobat. Then a flicker to her arms, and a third Legionnaire was collapsing, multiple perforations sprouting blood from her torso, like water from a decorative fountain. Fayazi’s engraver was shrieking wildly, diving for cover with his hands clapped to his ears.
The remaining Legionnaires darted after the twitch, trying to encircle her. I saw her pause, her dark eyes flicking about, counting the swords before her.
“Trap her!” bellowed Miljin. “Pin her in! Keep her from moving!”
The twitch looked to the window.
Another volley of green flares arose in the distance. The bells screamed on.
“Strike her down!” shouted Miljin. “Now, now!”
But the twitch bent low, sprinted for the window, darted about the Legionnaires, slid between two of them—and leapt out.
We all stared at the empty window, flummoxed.
“Where did she go?” cried Vashta. “Where in hell…”
Miljin and I ran to the window, peering out into the courtyard. Though the yard was flooding with figures bound up in Iudex blue, the twitch was nowhere to be seen.
“What in hell?” said Miljin. “She vanished?”
“No,” said Ana, standing slowly. “She did not run away, I believe. She went up, rather, climbing the tower.”
“Up?” said Vashta. “What the hell did she climb the tower for?”
“To get into my rooms,” said Ana. “The twitch is here for the reagents key, after all. I said just now that it was in my chest, in my rooms—but this was a lie. What the twitch will instead find there should be greatly surprising to her.”
“We must go up!” said Vashta. “We must go up and catch her!”
“No,” said Ana. “She will come down, and soon. And then she will perish. Let us go the atrium to meet her. For though we might not survive the day, let us at least take comfort that the evil folk among us will not, either.”
We exited the adjudication room in a dazed stagger, the bells ringing in our ears, Miljin leading the way with his sword drawn. Fayazi Haza began bawling that she wanted to go home, to go home, but Vashta told the Legionnaire to clap a hand on her arm and not let her go.
Then we heard a scream from high above us, and the slam of a door bursting open.
We looked up. A figure was staggering down the stairway, sobbing with rage.
“What…” choked the twitch’s voice. “What have you done to me?”
Vashta drew her own blade and stood beside Miljin and the Legionnaires, waiting. I stood before Ana, my sword held high. Then another volley of flares rose, and the tower was filled with green light, and we saw her.
The twitch was descending, her nose and mouth pouring blood. She coughed, and yet more blood came, sloshing down her front.
“What did you do to me?” she spat. “What did you…what did you…”
Yet I recognized what I was now seeing. I had seen such a transmutation before, when Miljin and I had found Ditelus on the Plains of the Path.
“Dappleglass,” I said softly.
“Yes,” said Ana quietly. “I told you I was worried someone might try to poison me, Din. I took three of your hairs and stuck them to the lid of my teapot, just in case. Yesterday evening, while you were at the banquet, I found them gone—and a tiny leaf stuck to the interior of the teapot with resin. Dappleglass, of course.”
The twitch stumbled down the last length of stairway, her eyes now leaking blood.
“Last night I lined my chest with leather, creating a seal,” said Ana. “And then, this morning, I snipped off the tiniest bit of the leaf, placed it in my teapot, and started it boiling at a low heat in my chest, and shut it. Not much—but then, twitches don’t need much. They’re very vulnerable to contagion…”
The twitch staggered down the last span of steps, blood pouring from her face, her long, stiletto sword still raised.
“But she is not dead yet,” Ana said, “and is still dangerous…”
“I tried to kill you before, you…you bitch,” the twitch said savagely. Flecks of blood danced in the air with each word. “Got…got your little helper instead.”
“So you think,” said Ana with a sniff. “But then, you and your masters always were fools.”
Her dark eyes glinted. “I’ll kill you and…and your child now…” she spat. “Even…even if I should die doing it…”
Miljin and the Legionnaires made a line before us, swords raised in a wall of sharp steel. “Try it,” he hissed at her. “Try it, and let me take vengeance for Nusi—”
Then the twitch leapt.
I had thought she’d been incapacitated by the dappleglass, but it seemed this was not so; for she managed to vault clear over Miljin and the Legionnaires, landed behind them, and sped straight for Ana and me.
I shoved Ana backward, putting myself in between her and the twitch. The twitch sped in at me, her eyes and nose and mouth now pouring blood.
Yet I noticed—my eyes could perceive her movements now.
She was moving slow. Too much movement, I guessed, for much too long.
I stepped forward, reading her stance, the angle of her shoulders, the bend of her wrist. She went in for the thrust, intending to spear me in my belly—yet I had expected this, for a thrust was all she could do with such a weapon.
My eyes fluttered. My muscles awoke and moved me, dancing me through one particular move…
The trick Miljin had taught me in the Iudex courtyard. His ugly little secret.
I angled my blade along her stiletto; then caught it, trapping it in my crossguard and shoving its point away, while keeping my own sword pointed at the twitch.
I saw her face change, shifting from savage joy to alarm. She was moving too fast. She could not change direction now.
My arm shook as her shoulder met the tip of my sword. She screamed, and I shoved forward, driving my blade through the flesh below her collarbone, severing the ligaments, rendering her left arm all but useless.
Her stiletto fell to the floor. She screamed aloud, shrieking, “You little son of a bitch! You little son of a bi—”
My body moved me again.
I pulled my sword from her shoulder, then raised it and hacked down at her.
My blow was clumsy. The edge did not slash open her throat as I’d intended, but instead smashed into the side of her skull, beside her temple and eye. Her bloody face changed to one of dull shock, the sword penetrating her eye socket and biting through the orb. I watched, mutely horrified, as her eye turned gelatinous and began to dribble down her cheek. She blinked once with her remaining eye, then tumbled forward, ripping my sword from my hand as she did so.
Fayazi started shrieking again, wild, hysterical screams. The tocsins rang and rang, screaming their warnings to us, to flee, to run, to panic, to pray. Vashta was shouting something, but I had no mind for it.
Then Ana’s voice: “It’s not done! Damn it, Din, the bloom’s not done! Get away, get away!”
Miljin bounded forward, picked me and Ana up like we were but toys, and dragged us clear to the Iudex tower entrance.
Then came a familiar, horrid sound, akin to thick fabric ripping. I looked over my shoulder to see a green growth sprout from the base of the twitch’s neck, then surge up about her, tearing her asunder in a burst of dark blood, and enveloping her in a veil of bloody, dark green leaves.
“Oh, Sanctum,” whispered Vashta. “Oh, holy Sanctum…”
Fayazi Haza was screaming again. Her engraver tried to comfort her, but she was having none of it.
“By the titan’s unholy taint,” panted Miljin. “By the titan’s unholy fucking taint…”
Vashta tore her face away from the body hanging in the trees. “We need to evacuate this tower, if your goddamn room’s been poisoned, Dolabra!” she spat at her.
“I left the window open,” Ana said. And the spores lose effectiveness quickly. “It should be vented clear and is now perfectly sa—”
“Shut up!” said Vashta. “For once, just shut up, woman! Miljin—I have a city to evacuate. I shall need your aid in that. But for now, you take that woman to the Legion tower!” she said, pointing at Fayazi. “And you lock her up, titan be damned! The rest of you Legionnaires, with me!”
Vashta and the Legionnaires sprinted off into the city, the sky still screaming with bells and the streets now coursing with folk trying to evacuate. Miljin grabbed Fayazi and the engraver, then turned to me and said, “Get Dolabra to the cart train! Now!”
I was still in shock from all I’d done and could barely make sense of him. “The…the cart train?” I said.
“Yes! To evacuate! Emperor’s blood, there’s a fucking titan making landfall! Go!”
CHAPTER 39
| | |
THE EVACUATION OF THE city was, to use Vashta’s own words, nothing short of a fucking disaster.
Ana and I staggered out of the Iudex tower to find the city had erupted into utter chaos. Every street was choked with carts, with cargo, with people, with livestock, all jockeying for space on the lanes leading west. People bellowed curses over the sound of the ringing bells or cried out news that this or that distant street was clear. Only the Iyalet cart trains presented any kind of order, lined with Legionnaires bearing tall black banners and stretching along the street before the Trifecta, waiting to bear senior officers out of the city.
But it was clear that even by cart train, leaving the city was going to be impossible. There were simply too many people in the streets. No one, it seemed, was willing to be taken by surprise by a breach again, and all intended to flee.
I should have been terrified, but I was still too shocked to feel much at all. I just mutely stared at the surging throngs of folk.
“I rather think, ma’am,” I finally said to Ana, “that we aren’t leaving soon. Nor doing much at all.”
“No, Din,” Ana said softly. “What a thing it is, to be reminded that despite all the deeds and sorrows of the day, our work is small in comparison to what occurs at the walls.”
“Then…what are we to do?”
“Well. We could stay here, and vainly hope.” She cocked her head. “But…that feels like a waste of an opportunity. I’ve never seen a living leviathan, Din. I should like to do so, I think. Or have you look for me.”
I stared at her blearily. “You what?”
“Why, it’s the chance of a lifetime, Din! If we get to the right spot and snatch a spyglass from one of the Legionnaires here, we shall have the chance not only to see a titan on the shores of the Empire of Khanum, but behold the moment in which we learn if the Empire has a future at all. Who else could claim such a feat?” She took me by the arm. “Come. Let us go look and know if we shall survive the day together. And if not, then we will have time aplenty to make our peace with creation.”
