THEY HAD BROUGHT Tvelujan’s cutter back to Cricket Station from the hatchery world, moored it, and more or less forgotten about it. Tvelujan had liked her privacy, so Shuthmili had only been aboard the tiny ship a few times.
That was enough to tell her it was changed utterly.
There had been a curious resistance as they’d opened the hatch, and now she saw why. The inside face of the panel was patched with some kind of—moss, was it, or lichen? Something dense and damp and so brilliantly green it was almost luminous. The same stuff had grown over the windows, leaving the cabin in a living darkness which was all one with the smell: medicinal, thick with decay.
“How unpleasant,” said Oranna, and conjured a magelight to see by.
The last time Shuthmili had been in here, every surface of the cabin had been stacked with books and papers, the maze-oak timbers covered with tacked-up maps and lists. The vague shapes of these were still visible, but they had been overrun with strange fungal life, furred over with something that could have been moss or could have been patches of colourful mould.
Huge flowering plants had run wild inside the ship. Blossoms the size of babies’ heads lolled on withered stalks. The edges of the petals were already brown and crumpled.
Csorwe and Tal were silent and ready. This frightened Shuthmili far more than anything else, because it meant they thought there was a real threat here. She pulled her gauntlets on, determined she would not be taken by surprise.
“Where is this coming from?” said Shuthmili. All this plant life obviously had some kind of arcane source, something that had swelled and maddened in Tvelujan’s absence. She could sense magic in the air like the smell of fire.
Oranna coughed into her sleeve, her lungs sounding like sheets of metal flapping in the wind. “I haven’t the faintest,” she managed. “Vegetation is not really my strong suit—”
“Tvelujan wasn’t a mage,” said Shuthmili. “Er, may she rest at the Hearth of the Mara,” she added, because some habits died hard and she had been a very well-behaved Qarsazhi young lady for many years.
“Then it must be some artefact,” said Oranna. That made sense. If Tvelujan had found something on one of her earlier expeditions, it was all too likely she would have concealed it from them.
Cherenthisse shrank back against the wall, holding her head. “Saar-in-Tachthyr,” she said, but Shuthmili couldn’t at that moment remember where she’d heard the name before.
Csorwe cut a path for them through the undergrowth. In among the plants there were still sad traces of Tvelujan’s existence: a pile of unwashed clothes, a stack of tea-stained mugs.
“Found something,” said Tal, hauling something out of a huge crate full of rags: an ornate statue, dull with lichen. “Fuck me, this is heavy.”
Csorwe leant over him critically. “It’s solid stone, and it’s the size of your whole chest, you moron.”
“Get bent, Csorwe, at least I have a chest—”
Oranna scrambled up from the bed and elbowed Csorwe out of the way. “My,” she said, “look at that. Cherenthisse, this must be one of your people.”
She brushed off the lichen. The statue was one of the hybrids Shuthmili remembered from the hatchery friezes: a woman’s head and torso tapering into a coiled snakelike body.
“The dual aspect of the Thousand Eyes,” said Cherenthisse tonelessly. “What of it?”
“Holy shit,” said Tal, scraping away at the statue with his nails. “It’s not solid stone. Some of this is gold.”
He was right. The statue’s scales were detailed with inlaid gold, and her hair had a gleaming sheen under the moss: the same gold as Cherenthisse’s hair.
“How gaudy,” said Oranna. “But it isn’t magical, I’m afraid. We’ll have to keep searching.”
For almost an hour the five of them cut back vegetation and sorted through what remained of Tvelujan’s belongings. Chipped crockery, crumpled linen, and a bottle of some dark poison which Csorwe said was anchovy sauce. Oranna settled on a crate, directing them in acid tones. Doing her best to disguise how tired she was, Shuthmili thought. She recognised the signs of blight well enough: she’d always been a bit of a hypochondriac, and had first diagnosed herself with early-onset mage-blight when she was twelve. Oranna undoubtedly had the real thing.
Shuthmili wondered, not for the first time, how things would have panned out for her if she’d ended up running with Oranna instead of Csorwe. Nothing good—most likely she would have ended up facedown in a sacrificial pool—but she couldn’t help having a certain sympathy for a fellow mage on the run.
At last they cut through to Tvelujan’s bunk. The pillow had a dent in the middle. Csorwe shook it out and straightened the sheets, automatically, without thinking about it, and for a moment Shuthmili was overcome by the kind of soft foolishness which still always took her by surprise whenever Csorwe did something that was so characteristically herself.
Pull yourself together, Shuthmili told herself. This is why Tal says you’re unbearable.
Puddles of mould in bright rings spilled out from under the bunk, vilely beautiful, like cut agate. Shuthmili knelt and peered, trying not to inhale anything. Under the bed were what must have been stacked books and journals, now damp slabs of wet pulp—Shuthmili’s heart bled at this more than anything else in the little ship—and a box, thick with flaking patches of mould but recognisable as a leather-bound travelling case. Was it her imagination that the rings of mould were spreading from the box, like ripples in a pond?
She dragged it out, leaving streaks in the mould. It was in better condition than most of Tvelujan’s belongings, but the clasps were rusted with age, and it took a little effort to pry them open. She managed it eventually and lifted the lid, and—
“Mother of Cities,” said Shuthmili. “I knew she was hiding something from us.”
Inside the case, nestled in drifts of nameless rot, was a sphere of faceted glass. It was so clean and fine and delicate compared to the rest of Tvelujan’s possessions that it took Shuthmili a moment to process what was inside it. The bud of an immense water lily, as big as her head. It looked very fresh, glossy and waxy, as though it had been plucked only moments before.
There must be wards of preservation in the sphere, she thought, dazedly. Like they use to keep food fresh aboard an Imperial frigate. But it’s so elegantly done …
Despite her best efforts, she must have breathed in some of the spores. They smelled overwhelmingly sweet and strange: flowers and rot, cool water and dead things, burning paper and decaying wood. She swayed, suddenly woozy, and realised that along with the smell a curious yearning had crept up on her, a thirst. Her gauntleted fingertips brushed the surface of the sphere, and it drank up power from her like cool water.
BE WARNED! said Lady Zinandour, and at the same time, she heard Csorwe shout her name.
“Ah,” said Shuthmili. “I’m sorry. Yes. I think we’d better leave this here.”
“Are you—”
“I’m fine,” said Shuthmili, shivering a little, and started rattling through the checklist before Csorwe could prompt her.
“My name is Qanwa Shuthmili, I am twenty-five years old—is this really necessary?”
“Go on,” said Csorwe.
Any dark power which chose to invade Shuthmili’s body would be able to pluck this knowledge from inside her skull as if choosing olives from a bowl, but the ritual clearly made Csorwe feel better, and it was, in a way, nice to know that she hadn’t lost anything obvious.
“My father was Qanwa Adhara, I was born in Qarsazh in the Year of the Peach, I feel a terrible lust for blood upon me, the abyss yawns, alas, my Corruptor summons me—”
“Yeah, yeah, all right, you’re fine,” said Csorwe, rolling her eyes.
“If you two are quite done,” said Oranna, tapping the surface of the sphere with one fingernail. “Look at this. It’s made to open.”
The panes of the sphere were curved like petals, with gold joints between them, and Oranna was right. The thing was made to open up like a flower. One of the panes had opened a crack, and a thin pale tendril that grew from the lily’s stem had worked its way out. Barely thicker than a hair, and yet it had made its way out of its prison and crept out into the box …
Oranna withdrew her hand sharply, and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear as if to cover for it.
“Saar-in-Tachthyr,” said Cherenthisse. “It is. It is.”
“Pardon me?” said Shuthmili.
“The priests’ sanctuary at Saar-in-Tachthyr,” said Cherenthisse. “The temple complex—the shrine of Iriskavaal. Those flowers. They grow there. Only there. I’ve been there,” she added.
“Really?” said Shuthmili.
“It still exists?” said Oranna, her yellow eyes gleaming.
“The priests’ closed library, vaults, laboratories. Their hatchery,” said Cherenthisse. “I do not know—but if this flower survives, then perhaps—”
Shuthmili felt excitement bubble up unbidden. “Cherenthisse, I wonder, do you remember how to get there?”
“Yes,” said Oranna, “I very much wonder that too.”
“I must return there,” said Cherenthisse. “If it survives, there is no other choice for me.” She was holding her head high for once, a flash of brilliance in her eyes which looked very much like hope.
“And I think we will come with you,” said Oranna.
Csorwe and Tal stared blankly.
“No, she’s right,” said Shuthmili, addressing the others. “If even a fraction of the complex has survived, it would be the most important Echentyri site still in existence. And we could be the first to survey it. We’d be in demand. It wouldn’t matter if Tvelujan’s people do blacklist us. We could get a permanent job at some other university if we ever wanted to settle down, or we could make our names as freelancers—or maybe there will be other artefacts—”
Shuthmili did not mention the gauntlets, but if Saar-in-Tachthyr really had been the stronghold of Iriskavaal’s mages, she might never have a better chance to learn about Echentyri magic.
“Why do you even want us?” said Csorwe to Oranna. “What’s in it for you?”
“Well, as you can see,” said Oranna, “I’m not as nimble as I once was, and I need the help of those I can trust.”
“What makes you think you can trust us?” said Csorwe.
“You know exactly what,” said Oranna, with a little smile. “May the abyss consume the breaker of promises.”
It was rare to see Csorwe flinch. Shuthmili might have missed it if she hadn’t been watching so closely.
“You mean the pledge,” said Csorwe.
There was a scar that snaked across the back of Csorwe’s left hand, the remnant of a long-ago bargain. Shuthmili had got used to the scar—just another part of Csorwe’s history—and forgotten what it meant. Almost, but not quite. Two years ago Csorwe had made a deal with Oranna, and sealed it with a pledge in blood, and Oranna had not yet called in what she was owed.
“Of course,” said Oranna. “I am not interested in compelling anyone to do anything that they do not wish to do.”
“Sure, that definitely sounds like something you would say if it was true,” said Tal.
Csorwe rolled up her sleeve, revealing the scar: a pale wriggling curlicue. In an ancient Oshaarun script, it was the character signifying obligation.
“I promised Oranna three days’ service. So she could force me to do this if she wanted to.”
“Yes,” said Oranna, “Csorwe is bound to me by blood. I could call in the pledge, if I needed to. But I do not yet need to, and if you are truly opposed to working with me, I will leave. If you agree—and I hope you will—we can talk terms.”
“Good job bringing her here, Talasseres, one of your top choices of all time—”
“Oh, screw you, Csorwe, what else was I going to do?” said Tal. “I didn’t know you’d signed some kind of insane blood pact with her—”
Oranna was back in the canteen talking to Cherenthisse, and as much as Shuthmili would have preferred to keep an eye on them, someone needed to make sure Csorwe and Tal didn’t come to blows.
“Anyway, didn’t you hear everything she told you?” said Tal.
“Yeah, Sethennai is missing, and some dangerous wizard or fragment or whatever wants him dead? They can join the club,” said Csorwe. Shuthmili sometimes suspected the two of them just sniped at each other when they didn’t want to think about something else, such as what exactly Belthandros Sethennai might be up to. “Why do you care?” Csorwe went on. “Why are you helping her?”
“Because I love to hear constantly all about what an idiot I am, and then get stabbed in the back,” said Tal. “Or the front, probably, all standing around like, I dunno, maybe she’s changed, wow what a big knife that is.”
“You just can’t let go of Sethennai, that’s what’s going on,” said Csorwe. “Do you really think that if you help him he’ll say, Come back Talasseres, all is forgiven?”
“Fuck off, obviously not! Either she’s right and something’s after him—and look, I know he’s an asshole, but I don’t want him to fucking die, all right?—or she’s wrong and he’s up to something.”
“And if he is?” said Csorwe, although Shuthmili could see very well that this was a facade. After all this time—after devoting the better part of her life to Belthandros Sethennai, and after two years free of him—there was a part of Csorwe which still wanted to drop everything and come running at the mention of his name.
“If he’s up to something, I want to know what it is. So I can stay away from it,” said Tal, which was a certain kind of logic, to be sure. “And stop Oranna getting her nasty hands all over it. And if there are loads of gold statues in this place, you never know, we might be able to come away from this with bags of cash—”
“Tal’s right,” said Shuthmili. “Not about the bags of cash, I’ve made my position on looting quite clear, but … I’d prefer to know what’s happening. Better to find out it’s nothing and feel stupid than to sit here and then get taken by surprise when it turns out it’s not nothing.”
“I did give Sethennai back the Reliquary,” said Csorwe, with reluctance. She gave Shuthmili a rueful smile. “And before you say he’s not my responsibility, I know. But nobody knows him as well as we do. And Cherenthisse wants to go,” she added.
“I do think she might try to get there on her own if we don’t help her,” said Shuthmili. “And I can’t blame her. It’s all that’s left of her home.”
“Uh-huh,” said Csorwe, “and I saw how you looked when she was talking about the place.”
Shuthmili felt her cheeks redden. She hadn’t been conscious of looking any particular way.
“It’s not just about Cherenthisse. It’s more than making our names,” said Csorwe. She reached out and clasped Shuthmili’s hand in hers. “This is what you’ve always wanted to do. You said time does nothing but take from us. I don’t want to stop you from taking something back just because I can’t face him.”
At last Shuthmili thought she understood. While Belthandros Sethennai had remained in Tlaanthothe, he had been a known quantity, a spider hiding out in his web, visible but far out of reach. Now that he was out in the world, he could be anywhere, and Csorwe would rather know for certain than be taken unawares.
“We’ve faced up to him before,” said Csorwe. She looked terribly brave. What must it be like, to have that kind of courage? Once Csorwe saw what needed to be done, she never turned away from it.
“You too, Tal,” said Csorwe. “He’s just a person. I think we should go.”