“What does it do?” she asked, voice choked into a whisper.
“Far more than it should,” Gaya said. “For years, it was my secret. My edge. The reason that I came back from so many missions that should have killed me. Once Osyrus saw it, he was relentless with his torture. He would heal some wounds with moss and leave others open for days. Weeks. I pulled back from my body. Ignored the pain. Counted the minutes and hours and days using my heartbeat as an anchor. An old widow’s trick to avoid going into shock.
“Eventually, my men tried to rescue me. He lured them here with my screams. And filled them with darts when they arrived. Took them down that tunnel behind you one at a time.” Ashlyn turned. There was a workstation there. Old and rusted machines, long stilled. Beyond the machines, there was a roughly hewn tunnel leading farther into the ground. “The first Naga arrived soon after that. Started circling this place. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him. There was so much pain, blinding and constant, but his presence was the first thing that had felt good in so long. We were drawn to each other. But when the Naga came down to me, Osyrus Ward killed him.”
Ashlyn fought with every ounce of her self-control not to panic. Because Gaya was describing the same things that were happening to Silas. And that meant that all of this would happen to him in time.
“And after that?” Ashlyn asked, struggling to keep her voice even.
“Osyrus drew more blood. Took more … pieces of me. He kept muttering about scope and scale and filtration. But the more he hurt me, the more Nagas were attracted to this place. Five. Ten. Twenty. I could feel them burrowing into the earth, looking for me.” She swallowed. “The Nagas started getting aggressive. Harrying the tiers above. That’s when Osyrus sealed the roof. Buried me with layers of metal and machines. I couldn’t feel them after that. Couldn’t feel anything. And that’s when the bloom happened.”
“Can you describe how it felt?”
“Yes. I felt a burning pit in my stomach. I begged him to stop. Told him something was wrong. But he didn’t care. I don’t … I don’t think he knew what would happen, either. When he cut off my arm, it started. I thought I knew what pain was before. But to feel my body changing like this … expanding. Veins wrapping around the earth and stone. My blood turning to moss.” She blinked. “The physical pain was bad. But to feel your body transforming. Becoming something that you don’t understand. That is true agony.”
She went quiet a moment. Looked up at the spiraling tendrils and wild plants along the ceiling.
“Osyrus was enthralled. He scratched his fucking notes for hours and hours. The grating sound of that quill made me sick. Then it was more needles. More knives. Eventually, he started taking organs out of me.” She winced. Looked down at the metallic patches on her torso. “I don’t know why I didn’t die after that. I don’t know … anything, besides the fact that I am an abomination.”
A tear fell from Ashlyn’s cheek. She wiped it away, but Gaya noticed.
“You’ve kept a tight grip on your emotions so far, Ashlyn. Which means that sorrow’s not for me.”
“There’s someone that I care about who has survived fatal injures for years. And a Gray-Winged Nomad has been following him for almost a month.”
“I see. It is his beginning. And my end. Fitting, I suppose. Although I am not sure there is an end for creatures like us. Just an endless loop of suffering and decay and rebirth.”
Ashlyn blinked the rest of the tears out of her eyes. Took a breath. She’d come a long way for answers. She needed to get as many as possible.
“What did Osyrus Ward do with the organs that he extracted?”
“I do not know. Everything that Osyrus took from me, he moved down that tunnel, where my men were.” She paused. “They screamed for weeks. Just as I screamed. And then one day … nothing. Osyrus left soon after. But he wasn’t angry. Driven, more like. Focused.”
Ashlyn looked at the tunnel. The luminescent mushrooms gave it enough of a glow to see the first turn. From there, it was impossible to tell what waited for her.
“You came for answers,” Gaya said. “Go get them.”
Ashlyn picked her way through the tangled vines that sprawled across the uneven ground. Before she reached the tunnel, she stopped at the workstation. It was almost entirely covered with overgrown plants, but beneath the fecund mass, Ashlyn could see various rusted tools. Needles as long as her arm. Saws and scalpels. She pulled a thick bundle of roots aside, and found a few decaying notes.
The light of the glowing mushrooms was weak, but if she tilted the note at just the right angle, the ink reflected off the light and became legible.
2 Farrin—224
Specimen 88 attracting Naga Soul Striders at an increasing rate. Killed one. Sealed area to prevent lizards from interrupting my work. Illumination by dragon oil would be toxic in sealed space, so planted some of Specimen 01’s luminescent mushrooms. And he said I was a poor steward of plants.
Breakthrough. Interwoven in the Seed’s biology is the mechanism that creates the dragon warrens. Transformation is spurred by a critical mass of physical trauma. Impossible to pinpoint the causation apex without further experimentation on future specimens.
Process thrilling to witness. Akin to a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly, but external and extremely rapid. Violent, even.
Assume there is a symbiotic relationship between the lizards and the Seeds that makes the bloom area a viable breeding ground. Interesting, but not useful to me on its own. I seek to surpass nature’s disgusting and random intricacies. Understanding them is simply a means to an end. But understand them, I must. Beginning exploratory surgeries on the bloomed Seed tomorrow.
She peeled away more notes, resisting the urge to gag when she saw that the sheet beneath was soiled by squirming maggots. She brushed them aside.
17 Farrin—224
Vivisection of 88 complete. Bloodstream mutated into the most potent Gods Moss I’ve ever encountered. Possible that age of the substance is correlated with efficacy. Organs underwent a transformation akin to petrification, however they retain an altered functionality. The lungs produce air, almost like a miniature greenhouse. The heart brings nutrients through the moss veins. The liver culls infection.
A curiosity. Cognitive function of 88 unaltered after bloom. Suggests brain did not undergo petrification, and is somehow preserved in its original state. Requires further study and research into possible applications.
During the transformation, 88’s body excretes a perfectly clear liquid, which is then stored in petrified organ cavities, not unlike a tortoise storing water in its bladder. Extracted the liquid from the following organs, in the following amounts:
— Heart: 3.4 pints
— Liver: 2.3 pints
— Lungs: 0.2 pints (respectively)
— Kidneys: 1.9 pints
Ashlyn looked back at Gaya, and the holes in her torso that Ward had patched with alloy and iron and bolts.
Initial testing of the liquid on bacteria cultures reveals an incredibly potent level of sterilization potential. Makes my Gods Moss and Cordata slurry look like dragon shit in comparison. This is the missing piece! A flicker of perfection hidden amidst the ruination of these peculiar meat sacks. These Seeds.
Disinfection is just the beginning. I will take the flicker and convert it to an eternal, pristine flame.
Shifting trials to the eleven remaining human specimens. The last that Okinu will send, I think. Must create a clean workspace for them—one that cannot be corrupted by my previous failures.
Ashlyn put the paper down. Looked at the tunnel again. It twisted to the right, but a track of glowing mushrooms ran along the ceiling, offering enough light to navigate.
She went inside.
48
CABBAGE
Ghost Moth Island, the Proving Ground
Cabbage had drawn the flex patrol for the night watch. That meant two unfortunate things. First, he had to travel through the upper levels of t
he Proving Ground to reach the tiers, and those levels were fucking horror shows. He’d repeatedly asked Simeon if they could clean all the disgusting crap out, but Simeon always refused and told Cabbage that he had the wrong type of blood for this work.
Second, Cabbage had to spend the whole night walking up and down the Proving Ground stairs, checking on everyone’s post to make sure nobody fell asleep or got drunk on the sly. Worst assignment you can draw, on the worst shift you can work.
Typical.
Howell used dice to create the crew assignments. Supposed to be random that way. But Cabbage seemed to draw the shit duties more often than not, and he was starting to wonder if the dice were loaded. Cabbage had a theory that Howell was jealous of his tapestries, and possibly seeking vengeance in the form of shit duties.
Doubting Simeon after the parley hadn’t won him any favor, either.
Cabbage’s ankle was screaming at him as he limped down the steps to the sea rail. He’d broken it three years back, racing across an ice-slick deck to behead a Ghalamarian merchant who’d taken Gnut by the throat. Cabbage had slipped before he reached the bastard and snapped the ankle. Gnut had died, and his cursed anklebone never healed right.
In addition to the consistently dodgy ankle, Cabbage hadn’t had time to finish fully drying out his socks before starting his shift. So there was a cold squelch against his skin to go with each shooting pain in his shit joint.
Nights like this made Cabbage rehash the wisdom of joining Simeon’s crew.
The plunder was good, no denying. Cabbage had squirreled away fourteen thousand and twenty-two gold pieces over their ten-year stint of marauding and murder, with another sixty-two coming from the prisoner exchange with Kerrigan. Plus he had his tapestries, taken from an Almiran envoy boat. The Malgrave dynasty alone was probably worth five thousand gold. Although he’d never sell those. Well, maybe the Hertzog one.
Point being, Cabbage was rich. But there was no amount of plunder that would regrow his ears.
Three years back, he’d thought about deserting down to Naga Rock, where there were apparently spiced meals, theater troupes, and feather beds, but it was hard to summon the courage. Simeon had personally caught the last man who went for a walk. Torn his arms off and beat him to death with them. Not that he was gonna live long without arms.
Still. It was a shitty way to die just for wanting to see a funny show and sleep on something besides moldy hay.
But from the way Kerrigan was talking, Naga Rock was no more. He’d missed his shot at a better life. Now there was nothing to do but pass another miserable winter in this cold metal shithole with too much to drink and not enough to eat, listening to the mushroom people rooting around in the forest across the Bloody Sludge.
And in spring, the killing would start again.
While he was pondering his plight, Cabbage came up on Frost, who was manning the sea rail ballista and huddled up in a Lysterian cloak to stave off the autumn chill. Cabbage was envious of the garment. Lysterians made the best cloaks.
“Cabbage.”
“Frost.” He sidled up. Looked out over the black expanse. “Catch sight of anything?”
“Some lizard’s been circling, but it’s staying up in the rafters. Deep outta range.”
“You see what kind?”
“The big kind.”
“Because Simeon’s all worked up over some Gray-Winged Nomad. Was it a Nomad?”
Frost just shrugged.
“You heard them outlanders killed the alchemist?” Cabbage asked.
Every man in Simeon’s crew had made the chattel run a dozen times, so they all knew the drill. Wasn’t no pact with demons or open pit to hell. Just that crazy alchemist burying people alive in the middle of the island and keeping their crew rich in weapons and poor in everything else.
“Heard it.”
“And?”
“It’s dragonshit.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Simeon’s walking around with that shiny new helmet. The alchemist was the only one who could work that machinery shit.”
“Naw, Ashlyn Malgrave made that for him.”
“The ransom queen? I heard she was a witch. Fucked a bunch of Almiran forest demons or something to get lightning magic.”
“Dunno about that, but she’s a good tinkerer.”
“Huh. Well she can tinker my dick whenever she wants.”
Frost grinned, looking to see if Cabbage would follow suit. He didn’t.
“If the alchemist is dead, do you think we’ll move on? I mean … not right away. But maybe in a season or two? No reason to stay here with all this weird crap without the alchemist to fix it.”
“Don’t be stupid. We’re never leaving this island, man.”
“Why not?”
“How many death sentences you got on your head?”
“Two,” Cabbage admitted. Papyria and Ghalamar. They all had them in Ghalamar, though. Simeon loved killing Ghalamarians.
“I got four. And Simeon’s got one pretty much everywhere you can earn the bitch. They won’t even let him into Taggarstan anymore. Taggarstan, man. They would let one o’ them mushroom people in if he had coin to pay for his drinks. You best accept that this hunk o’ metal is the only safe harbor left to our lot.”
“Well, I hate it up here.”
“Should have thought about that before you made the pact.”
“But the pact is dead.”
“Some agreements outlive the related parties, you know?”
Cabbage scratched at his ruined ears. “I do.”
He left Frost to his post, and made the rounds along the Proving Ground. Up the steps. Check on Roli and Carl. Down the stairs. Check on Ufrith and Laith. And on it went. Carl was drunk and pretending not to be, but everyone else was doing their job.
But when he came back around to Frost, he was gone.
“Frost?” Cabbage called.
The only response he got was a gusty howl of cold air.
Cabbage looked around the tier. Other than the unmanned ballista, all he saw was rust and lichen.
He headed back up the stairs, cursing softly at his shitty ankle.
“Ufrith!” he huffed as he neared the top of the stair. “Did Frost come up this way?”
He summited. Looked around. But Ufrith was gone now, too.
“Ufrith?”
Nothing. Shit.
Where could Ufrith have gone? Cabbage had just seen him on his way down to the sea rail. He’d flipped an obscene gesture as Cabbage passed.
He searched the area where Ufrith should have been standing. This time, along with the rust and the lichen he found a trail of blood.
Just a few drops at first, then a steady, long stream that could only come from an open wound.
Cabbage unslung his crossbow. Yanked the bolt back to put tension in the first round. He’d learned the hard way you can’t leave the thing wound tight for too long. On one of his first reavings, he’d left his bow armed overnight because he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to work the complicated thing in the heat of the moment, then when he did finally shoot it at some Balarian soldier, the bolt barely had enough power to dent the breastplate.
That Balarian would have killed him. But Simeon was there. Saved his ass.
Cabbage followed the blood. Moving slow. Careful. Checking each shadow, praying that Ufrith would appear holding a rag over his hand and bitching about a misfire or something. That happened more and more these days. Just last week Jackal had lost a thumb after trying to calibrate a crossbow that started shooting practically sideways after he dropped it during a rough boarding.
Something twitched in the shadows ahead. A big, hulking shape.
“Hey!” Cabbage shouted, raising the crossbow. “Who’s that?”
No response.
“Respond or I fire.”
The hulking shape moved out of the shadows, revealing an all-too-familiar set of armor. The Ghost Moth scales were glowing in the moonlight. Cabbage relaxed
his trigger finger.
“Hey, Simeon.”
“What have I told you about hesitating, Cabbage?”
“That it’ll send me down the river one day.” He lowered the crossbow. “But if you’d been someone else in our crew … a shot in the dark would have killed you.”
“A slow response on a foggy night will send a man down the river, too.” Simeon ran a gloved hand through his greasy hair. The new helmet was attached to a hook on his hip. “What’s got you all wound up?”
“Probably nothing.”
“Spit it out, Cabbage.”
“Frost and Ufrith, uh, they’re not at their posts. But they probably just went for shits.”
“Huh.” Simeon looked down at the blood trail. Rolled one of his shoulders. A clattering of dragon scales followed, like a crowd of men cracking their knuckles.
“Thought maybe Ufrith clamped his finger down on the jam of his crossbow. Happened to Jackal last month and bled like a stuck goat. Anyway, I’ll give ’em an earful when I find ’em but we—”
He was interrupted by something falling off the top tier and landing between them with a splatter.
Ufrith. His throat sawed open from ear to ear.
“Well, Cabbage. Your theory has been debunked.”
“Aeternita’s mercy. What do we do?”
By way of response, Simeon unhooked the helmet from his hip and slid it over his head. There was a metallic thump, then a whir of internal wires as the machinery tightened. The two halves of the faceplate shifted together—hiding Simeon’s face.
“Find the fucker who did this and kill him.”
A moment later Simeon was climbing up the side of the Proving Ground—dragon-scale gauntlets screeching against the steel as he scaled the heights faster than a Balarian monkey.
“Anything?” Cabbage called after he disappeared into the fog above.
“Nothing.” Simeon’s voice was muffled by the helm.
There was a scream on the far side of the Proving Ground. Then the metallic snap of crossbow bolts firing.
“Cut him off on the eastern side,” Simeon hissed from above, then clomped off into the darkness.
Sorcery of a Queen Page 43
