The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)(63)

“This,” I said, “is something I could get used to.”

He laughed. “You look quite at home here, with your cone hat and your shootstraw pipe!”

“Then I only look it, sir. It’s not at all where I expected to be. Last month I was earning my dispensation by chasing down pay fraud.”

“It’s not so uncommon, though.” Strovi looked out at all the Legionnaires, all coming and going in the light of the flickering fire. “So many come here by so many roads, having made deals or signed contracts or bartered away some bit of their life for a bundle of talints. Yet when they’re here, standing among one another, and they realize what we hold back…That’s when they see.”

“See what, sir?”

“What the Empire really is.” He grinned at me. “Those walls out there—some stretches are four hundred years old. Made back when the Khanum still walked these lands in full force. Planned and wrought and manned by ancient peoples, some of them far stranger than anything the Apoths could brew up now. And since those first stones were laid, no leviathan has ever walked the Titan’s Path again, has never made it into the inner recesses of the land. And none has ever approached the Valley of Khanum. Because of how we suffer, and labor, and serve.” His grin grew rather dreamy. “The Empire is the people next to you, and before you. Bodies in boots on the wall, taking up posts served by the ancients. We are the fulcrum on which the rest of the Empire pivots. And we are all made equal and common in that service, and before its long history.” He paused. “Though perhaps I’m being sentimental.”

“I’d say Talagray could use some more sentiment,” I said honestly. “Especially after all we’ve discovered, sir.”

“Ha! But no need to be so formal.” The smile faded from his lips. “I mean, you call your immunis by her first name.”

“Ana is…different, sir. As you’ve no doubt seen.”

“Yes, but.” His smile was gone now. “You’re not in my Iyalet. I could be different, too. You could just call me Kepheus, if you liked.”

A strangely earnest look stole over his face, and his eyes searched mine. Despite his warm words he suddenly seemed terribly lonely, standing there in the light of the fires, his curls clinging to his temples. I reminded myself to stay controlled and contained.

“Never mind,” he said suddenly. “Perhaps I overstepped. Apologies. We should continue on, yes?”

I nodded and followed him into the night.



* * *



—

BY THE TIME we got to Suberek’s neighborhood it was fully dark. As Ana had suggested, Suberek’s fernpaper mill was one of many in this industrial section of town, which was stacked with tall, narrow wooden structures built next to the canals, all using the water’s trickle to power their many wheels and mechanisms. The mills were all quite similar, with stables and large doors at the back for the loading of their wagons. The great wheels hung still and blue and ghostly in the starlight. It must have made a merry scene in the day, but tonight it was strange and spectral.

Strovi pointed into the dark. “That one at the end. That’s it.”

I studied Suberek’s mill carefully. Utterly dark, no trace of light within. Fernpaper walls clean and thick, framed by stonewood posts. A sturdy structure that should withstand the fiercest of quakes.

“I’ll knock,” said Strovi, as we approached, “but I am empowered by the Legion to enter by force if unanswered. So if we can’t get in, I shall break in, to make sure this fellow still lives. That make sense?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

A gleaming grin. “Should be entertaining. I expect this will be the first time you’ve ever broken into a house.”

I chose not to answer that.

Strovi strode up to Suberek’s front door, lantern raised high in his hand. As I followed, the mill’s stables rose into view. The shadows behind the fence posts flickered and shivered in Strovi’s light, making it feel like all the darkness was shifting there. Perhaps it was the clar-tea running through my blood, but I liked it not at all.

Strovi raised a hand to knock as I stared into the stables. Yet then I noticed something and snatched his hand before his knuckles struck the door.

“What is it?” he asked.

I nodded toward the stables, where the gate was standing slightly ajar. Then I gestured to the other mills, whose stable gates were firmly shut.

“Gate’s left open,” I whispered. “Doesn’t seem right.”

Strovi looked at them, then at me. He nodded, drew his sword, and together we approached the stables.

The little yard within was utterly abandoned, no pony or mule or hog to pull any cart. A few hints of manure, most of it soft from the rains. I touched the hay piled in the corner and found it soft and mildewed. Smelled it and caught the scent of fungus. Days old at least.

I gestured to Strovi to lower the lantern, and when he did I read the mud at our feet. There I saw the scars and shapes of many footprints, mostly boots, many larger than my own—but no hoofprints of any kind, no animals. And it had just rained today, as my wet clothes could testify.

I looked at the mill again, thinking. Studied the windows, wondering if I might spy some movement within.

Then the wind shifted, rose. I caught an aroma in the air, faint but powerful. As the wind died it vanished, but I recognized it: the scent of rot, and putrefaction.