Most remarkable was Blas’s face. It seemed the shoots had grown multiple branches as they’d emerged from his torso, and one had shot sideways through Blas’s skull, bending his head at an awful angle; yet the branch had somehow enveloped his skull above the upper jawline, swallowing his face and his nose and ears. All that was left of Blas’s skull was his lower jaw, hanging open in a silent scream; and there, above it in the wood, a half ring of teeth and the roof of a mouth, submerging into the rippling bark.
I stared at his chin. A whisper of steely stubble; a faint scar on the edge from some accident or conflict. I moved on, looked at the rest of him. Left arm furred with light brown hair, fingers calloused and crackling from years of labor. The leggings on the left leg were stained dark with blood, so much so that it had pooled in his boot, filling it like a pot of sotwine.
I felt a drop on my scalp and looked up. The shoots had punched through the roof of the house, and the morning mist was drifting inside in dribs and drabs.
“Sticks out about ten span past the top of the house, if you’re curious, sir,” said Otirios. “Shot through four span of roofing like it was fish fat. So—a pretty big growth. Never seen anything like it.”
“How long did this take?” I asked hoarsely.
“Less than five minutes, sir. According to the servants’ testimony, that is. They thought it was a quake, the house shook so.”
“Is there anything the Apoths have that can do this?”
“No, sir. The Apothetikal Iyalet has all kinds of grafts and suffusions to control the growth of plants—succus wheat that ripens within a quarter of a season, for example, or fruits that grow to three or four times their conventional size. But we’ve never made anything that can grow trees within minutes…or one that can grow from within a person, of course.”
“Have we got any reason to believe it was intended for him?”
“Inconclusive, sir,” said Otirios. “He’s Engineering, moves around a good bit. Could be he accidentally ingested something during his travels or contaminated himself. There’s no way to tell yet.”
“Did he visit anyone else in town? Or meet any other infected official, or imperial personnel?”
“Doesn’t seem so, sir,” said Otirios. “It appears he departed from the next canton over and came straight here without meeting anyone.”
“Has there ever been a record of any contagion like this?”
A contemptuous pucker to his lips. “Well. There are contagions all over the Empire, sir. Suffusions and grafts and alterations growing wild…Each one is different. I’d have to check.”
“If it is contagion, it should spread, correct?”
“That’s…the nature of contagions, sir?” said Otirios.
“Then how did it happen to this one man, and nothing and no one else?”
“Hard to say at this point, sir. We’re checking Blas’s movements now. He was on a tour of the outer cantons, including the sea walls, reviewing all the construction. The, ah…” He hesitated. “…The wet season is coming soon, after all.”
I nodded, stone-faced. The coming of the wet season hung over the outer cantons of the Empire so heavily that ignoring it would be like trying to forget the existence of the sun.
“No one visited the room before Blas arrived?” I asked. “Or touched anything?”
“The servants did, of course. We only have their testimony to rely on there.”
“And no signs of attempted entry?”
“No, sir. This place has more wardings than the Emperor’s Sanctum itself. You’ve got to have reagents keys just to get close.”
I considered this silently, recalling the number of windows and doors in this house.
“It’ll be a fine thing if you can explain it, sir,” Otirios said.
“What?” I said.
“A fine thing for a career.” Another smile, this one somewhat cruel. “That’s what you want, right, sir? Advancement? It’s what any officer would want, I’d imagine.”
“What I want,” I said, “is to do my duty.”
“Well, of course, sir.”
I looked at him for a moment. “Please give me a moment, Princeps,” I said. “I will need to engrave the room.”
* * *
—
OTIRIOS LEFT ME standing alone before the tree-mangled corpse and shut the door. I reached into my engraver’s satchel on my side and opened it up. Within sat row after row of tiny glass vials sealed with corks, each one containing a few drops of fluid: some pale orange, others faintly green. I slid one out, removed the cork, placed it beneath my nose, and inhaled.