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.”
* * *
—
I FETCHED A spyglass from a Legionnaire, and together we walked to the eastern part of the city, which was by now abandoned by the fleeing crowds. We came to a high earthworks rampart facing east, the noon sky yawning bright and clear and beautiful above, and in the distance rose the sea walls, just the barest thread of black running along the horizon.
“What do you see, Din?” Ana whispered.
I pressed the spyglass to my eye and peered out.
I saw the walls, tall and black and buffeted by earthworks. A whole landscape, it seemed, ripped from the earth and placed against the sea; and there, to the south, a narrow, ragged gap, and all about it lay broken stones and heaps of crumbled soil. Yet that was all I could see.
“It has not come yet, ma’am,” I said.
“Hm…the waiting is the awful part,” she said. “I’ve prepared to die many times in my life. I did last night, as I made my trap. I did this morn, as I poisoned my own rooms. Perhaps it is a wise thing, to prepare for death every day, just as the Empire prepares for death every wet season.”
I glanced at her. “You could have told me she was a twitch, ma’am.”
“I could have,” Ana said. “But I didn’t want you to try something gallant and stupid. Better to let the Legionnaires take her, I thought. There were enough of them. If only the bells had not rung, giving her a chance to escape…”
“And then,” I said, “I had to go and do something gallant and stupid anyway.”
“Yes. It shall take work to keep you alive, boy. A pity we might perish today, for you are an honorable officer, Dinios Kol. It would have been a fine thing, to rely on you further in my works. We could have done many great things together.”
A rumbling in the east. The crackle of bombard fire.
A thought occurred to me. One I did not much like, but one I felt I had to obey.
I swallowed. “W-would you say, ma’am,” I said softly, “that now would be the hour for honesty and confessions?”
“I…suppose?” she said. “What makes you say that?”
I was silent.
“Do you have something to confess, Din?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. I do.”
“And what might that be?”
I swallowed again. “I confess I…I am no honorable officer, ma’am.”
“How do you mean?”
I shut my eyes. “I should not be your assistant. For I…I did not achieve my scores on my Iudex exams honestly, ma’am. My scores were fraud.”
Ana said nothing. The bombards crackled on.
“I had failed every other Iyalet application,” I said. “I have great trouble reading and writing. And the position with you was the only one I could hope for. So I…I learned how to pick locks, ma’am. That was why I learned such a thing. I learned it to break into the Apoth’s offices at night. I stole copies of the Iudex exams. All of them, for I didn’t know which one I would be given. Once I had the chance to read them the…the way I do my reading, I saw that I knew the answers, but I had to practice writing them. So…I spent three days memorizing how to draw the letters. How to put the sentences together. Remembering the movements. That was how I made such high scores, ma’am. My trainer knew and beat me for it. And I deserved it. And I have felt like a trespasser here every day, because…because I am a trespasser. I am no honorable officer, ma’am. And I am sorry for deceiving you. If we survive the day, I shall accept what punishments you choose. For I tire of hiding my nature from you. I have no appetite for this sin.”