A Study of Fiber and Demons

by Jasmine Gower

  "Be careful," Liam warned.

  She shook her head. "No need. It's dead."

  "Of the machine, I meant." Even collapsed, as though it had once been attached to the wall or suspended from the ceiling, it was tall enough that pieces could still fall off and tumble into any of them.

  "What did you find?" Jack had rejoined them. Alim had nearly forgotten about him and couldn't even bring himself to turn away at the sound of his voice. "You said something was de—oh."

  It was unfortunate, but Alim was entranced by the teal fiber. Curious, confused.

  "It doesn't match."

  Jack turned toward him, his hand hovering close to his mouth as though about to gag. "What—what do you mean?"

  Alim rolled up his sleeve, exposing the bracelet, though he hardly needed to check. The colors weren't even close. "There were two demons here. One shed the orange, and this one…" Jack's eyes watered as Alim trailed off. The poor historian was too inexperienced and focused on the soft sciences for the sight before them, but Alim was too wrapped up in his own surprise to think to offer comfort.

  Two demons.

  The play of light and shadows shifted as Liam turned the lamp. "Here. The other one."

  Alim shuddered, thinking he meant he had found a second corpse, but he stepped closer to find Liam pulling strands of orange off a protruding steel bar brokenly jaggedly at the end. Alim understood.

  "They were in this room together. They must have knocked the machine over—one was crushed, the other injured, perhaps pierced in the silk sac. It must have sealed the room off as it left, perhaps to retrieve its fallen friend after tending to its own wounds."

  "We should check the pool," Sylvestra said. "Perhaps it came in and out of the ruins from that dock? It might have dropped more silk there, or…" Or bled out. Collapsed in the pool and drowned. Gotten trapped somewhere underwater. Otherwise met some horrible fate that would provide them with not one but two demon cadavers to study.

  Liam apparently had the same realization. "Callous as it may sound, we should first try to retrieve the corpse in front of us. It's clearly not in prime condition, but it's nigh impossible to obtain demon cadavers, and it could lead to some promising research. We may yet even be able to find some way to recreate the silk sacs' abilities synthetically—or it may still work itself."

  "Assuming it wasn't completely flattened or impaled," Alim said, but Liam wasn't wrong. This was the best find they could have hoped for—a demon to bring back to the university to study safely. He was right about the callous thing too.

  All four of them worked together to grab separate corners of the machine, and although Alim was careful to check that he was not gripping anything with jagged edges, the weight of the metal strained his delicate scholar's hands as they lifted. The presence of the corpse did not make the task any less unsavory, its inhuman body reeking like rotting grass.

  Regardless, they were able to lift the fallen machine, which allowed Jack to release his end to move the body out of the way. He rolled it to a corner, and its pale, grimacing chitin face stared up with blank, empty eye sockets at the ceiling. Its wiry torso was twisted in broken angles, and its tentacle-like legs splayed limp and tangled with its draping demonweave skirt.

  When it was safely retrieved, Alim, Liam, and Sylvestra lowered the machine back down with a chorus of groans. They had nothing to wrap the body in, so Liam simply picked it up bridal-style to haul back to the dinghy, indifferent to the blood and loose teal fibers clinging to his shirt as he did. The others followed him back to the dock, though they had little to do but stand around as he settled their find in the boat.

  Jack sat down on the steps and curled forward in on himself.

  Poor thing. It certainly hadn't been a pleasant discovery—even Sylvestra, who had studied a demon cadaver at length, seemed quiet and shaken in light of it. Jack was not prepared for an academic endeavor of this nature.

  Alim went to settle next to him. "Are you all right?"

  Jack stared into his lap. "Yes, yes… Just trying to figure out how to word some things in my report to Professor Unteng." He sighed, his voice quaking as it released. "What a find. Perhaps it's better that it's dead… just, scientifically speaking."

  "This is our best chance at making a breakthrough on the subject of demonweave. Its body will be put to good use, and perhaps it would have taken comfort in that?" Perhaps they would find a way to create synthetic silk sacs. Or perhaps they would prove there was no way to control the production of demonweave short of enslaving the demons as cattle.

  Jack laughed, but there was nothing of his chipper enthusiasm in it. "Of course. We're only stealing its body to dissect for our own needs. Anyone should be pleased for such indignity and sacrifice if it furthers scientific progress." He groaned and ran both his fingers through his thick hair. Alim envied those fingers that got to tangle themselves in such a beautiful mane. "I'm fine, though. I just… need to brace myself for the realities of this line of work."

  Alim knew Jack was having an emotional crisis, but the phrasing tickled him. "Of academics?"

  "It takes more out of you than people expect. It's a toil of unrecognized accomplishment and bitter failure." Finally, he looked up, staring at Alim with deadened brown eyes. "You know what I mean."

  It abruptly ceased to be funny. Jack was taking their discovery of the dead demon hard, and Alim felt a surge of sympathy that overrode any sense of professionalism. Scooting closer, Alim reached forward to caress Jack's jaw—an inviting touch, but nothing more.

  Jack closed his eyes, and Alim hoped he would lean into the touch. To take Alim's hand and kiss it, to close the distance between them and collapse into Alim's arms. But he was still and silent for a moment before gently swatting Alim's hand away.

  "I'm sorry. I know you're…" Jack shook his head and stood. "Our work isn't done. We have to try to find the other demon, or traces of it. I…" He adjusted his jacket, squared his shoulders. For a moment, he seemed more determined, cold and aloof like Liam, but the impression was blessedly quick to fade. "I'm fine. I can't let a bit of squeamishness stand in the way of my ambition."

  "That's the spirit," Sylvestra said, and her voice made Alim jump to his feet. He had been oblivious to his nemeses while Liam loaded their find onto the boat, and now it appeared he was finished in his task and both he and Sylvestra had been watching Alim and Jack.

  He wanted to scold them for their inconsiderate eavesdropping, but Liam was already headed back up the stairs, following Jack who strode on with shaky resolve. Sylvestra lingered behind, staring at Alim. Her arms were folded over her chest, either because she was chilly in the dampness or she wanted to draw Alim's attention to her curves, not that they needed the help.

  Or maybe he just wanted her to want him to notice her, after being brushed aside by Jack. It was obnoxious, either way.

  "What?"

  "I'm concerned about the precedence this is setting." He thought she meant his behavior around Jack until her gaze drifted toward the boat. "You were right about the silk sac. If it's damaged, it may not do us any good. But if we bring that cadaver back to the university, they will expect us to simply go out and fetch another sample. And your contacts might not be warriors, but it isn't as though there aren't blades for hire."

  And is that how you got your original test subject? Alim wanted to ask. "Sentimental toward these creatures, are you?"

  "I suppose it comes with studying them as much as I have. You might know, if you were part of my team."

  She might as well have slapped him in the face. Before he could compose himself and fire back with some scathing remark of his own—anything, even a petty jab at the coloration of her teeth—she stepped closer, her hazel eyes glinting with gold fire.

  "I know why you're here—it's the same reason that I am. You want to build yourself back up. But if you had shown that ambition before and actually worked for your standing in the university, you wouldn't need it now."

  His molars ground
into each other as he kept his jaw clamped shut. So much for the tentative amicability between them that had been forming earlier. "Well, Researcher Geruz, fat lot of good your admonishment does me five years after the fact. You think I don't know that taking those bribes was a mistake? And what difference would it have made? You still ended up with the job I wanted, even before Liam exposed me. What would it have gotten me if I had played by the rules?"

  "A spot on my team. I earned my position, but you had the potential to be a key asset in our department. Now you're left scraping for dignity, and even then you can't stay focused on it so long as pair of pretty eyes bats his lashes at you."

  "Well, that's fine and easy for you to say, but we can't all be prudes."

  He had found the petty insult he was looking for, and it was much lower than he meant to go, especially when she flinched with a stricken look draining the glint from her eyes. He regretted even more so once that look twisted into a snarl and she pulled back a fist and punched him in the throat.

  He staggered back, hacking and wheezing against the fiery heat that spread across the impact point. He was lucky not to lose his footing and topple down the stairs, but he had to hunker into a crouch and hold out a hand to keep Sylvestra from knocking him back when she took another step toward him.

  "I'm sorry! I deserved that."

  She stalled, clenching her fists as she contemplated a second strike. "You did, and you deserved your downfall, too. Though I'm sure Liam would have found some other way to ruin you, eventually." She whirled and hurried up the stairs after the others, a hurricane of indignant brilliance and under-utilized talent.

  A toil of unrecognized accomplishment and bitter failure.

  Jack's words, but Alim couldn't get Sylvestra out of his head, even as he could not quite clear his throat from her attack. Guilt gnawed at him. He shouldn't have demeaned her sexuality like that. He shouldn't have acted as though the exposure of his own corrupt actions was anywhere comparable to her work being plagiarized, although she did not know that he knew that. He shouldn't have mocked her for caring about the fate of the demons, even as he'd tried to comfort Jack over the same thing.

  She did deserve her job. She knew and cared more about demons than any of them there. The board should have appointed her, unambiguously, as the leader of this project. Alim wanted the credit, wanted the opportunity to gain social capitol from this project, but he had been more concerned about soothing Jack's worries and garnering his attention than he had been in finishing their work.

  Even Liam was more focused on the actual science of their project.

  Alim wondered with a deflated feeling if he deserved the career that he strived for. If he ever could.

  Three

  When Alim returned to the inner lake dock, giving Sylvestra several minutes of a head start, he found her standing in the open, still pouting from their spat. Alim couldn't say he felt any better about the interaction, but Liam and Jack emerged from separate connecting rooms before Alim was forced to endure an awkward silence with Sylvestra.

  "Nothing," Liam said. "All of the open rooms were already picked clean by Feist."

  "I was able to open another closed room," Jack said with an apologetic shrug, "but the entire floor was flooded to the ankles. It looks like anything that was in there dissolved long ago."

  "Then we've searched the ruin to satisfaction?" Alim asked, abruptly eager to leave, but both Liam and Jack shook their heads.

  "There's still the pond. I would have checked myself, but…" Liam rolled his shoulders, seeming embarrassed about his anxiety toward water.

  "Those pods might have clues, too," Jack said. "I think I figured out how to get them open from those control panel stations. There might be some hint as to where our orange demon got off to."

  "Assuming it's not face-down at the floor of that lake," Sylvestra said, but she strode over to the edge of the dock to peer down. Alim did the same, several arms' reaches away from her.

  The surface of the lake was actually farther down from the dock than Alim expected—far enough that it would not be a simple matter of crawling back up if one dropped into the water. He could not guess how far down it went. From his angle, it seemed an endless tube of water. He did expect that it led somewhere, given the pods attached to the docks were clearly water-faring vessels of some kind.

  But the body of water was inaccessible to four mere human academics, unequipped for a diving excursion.

  "Checking the pods it is, then," Alim said, straightening. "Jack?"

  Jack's eyes lingered on him, distracted, before he realized that Alim had addressed him. With a little jump, he tucked a wisping lock of hair behind his ear, his cheeks flushing pink. Alim wanted to feel a little flutter in his heart for having caught Jack watching him like that, but he was just too damned exhausted from the whole endeavor. He would have time to flirt with Jack once they returned to the university.

  "Yes, sorry. The pods. Just let me…" Jack went to the nearest control station, twisting dials and pressing buttons like Sylvestra had done with the door. With a creak and the grinding of less-than-pristine metal upon metal, one of the pod hatches opened upward. "Go on and take a look. I believe it might have some kind of internal lighting system—I'll see if I can switch them on."

  It was doubtful the surviving demon had entered the pod if it hadn't also left with it, but there still might have been some clue within. And Alim feared if they did not check every cranny of the ruin that they could reach, the Directors' Board would only send them back to make sure nothing had been missed.

  He, Liam, and Sylvestra all went to examine the pod's inside together. The fit was not as tight as Alim feared—a round cockpit wide enough that even Liam could have laid down flat across the floor.

  Sylvestra's eyes sparkled as she stepped in and looked about, and Alim was almost inspired by the awe in her expression as she scanned the plethora of demon technology laid out before them—more buttons, dials, levers, and demon etchings. He should have been half as drawn in as she was, being a scholar of demons himself, but again exhaustion weighed at him. He had expected this project to be trying, but the dead demon, Sylvestra's outburst, and the chill that was now sinking down into his bones was all too much.

  He almost hoped to find Liam as broken down as himself, so as not to be the only burnout present, but something had caught his interest, too, as he opened a drawer and a foul odor wafted forth.

  Alim hacked and covered his mouth, fearful for a second that Liam had found the other demon. But the first had smelled like a wilting field in winter—unpleasant, but not the sour, meaty stench of a human corpse or whatever Liam had just located.

  It must not have been anything terribly unpleasant, as Liam broke into an open grin as he peered into the drawer. "Is that…?" He lifted his head and shouted out at Jack. "Where are those lights?"

  "Working on it." Jack's voice wavered, but Alim was too perplexed by Liam's discovery to pay it much notice.

  "What have you found?"

  "Some sick rat that crawled in there and died, if I had to judge from the smell," Sylvestra said.

  Liam's grin didn't falter. "'Fool's gold' fungi. Or so I hope—can't tell in the dark. But it grows in cold, damp places like this, and gives off an odor like a horse dying of dysentery."

  "A colorfully accurate description," Alim said, remembering that Liam's field of study was not Demon Arts in general, but Biomagics.

  "It's quite rare, and I wouldn't mind gathering some samples for my other work. Its energetic properties actually resemble that of demonweave quite a bit." Without waiting for the light, he reached in and began picking at it.

  Sylvestra rolled her eyes but moved her attention elsewhere as Liam pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wrap the sample he scraped out of the drawer.

  The loud grinding of the door jolted Alim's attention away from the other two, cold muscles instantly sore from how they clenched. Whirling toward the entrance to the pod, he found the door already half
way shut.

  "Um, Jack?" Alim called. The door closed with a clang and a whirring series of grating clicks.

  Panic fretted at Alim's nerves, but Liam grunted. "I don't think that was the light switch," he said.

  Alim stepped up to the closed metal door and banged his fist on it. "Jack? Can you hear me?" He shifted to peer out the glass window above what must have been the main control panel. Green with age and mold, Alim could see well enough out of it to find Jack still standing at the dock control station. His hands hovered motionless over the panel, his eyes shut tight as he grimaced.

  "Jack?"

  Without opening his eyes, Jack lowered one hand to hit a button on the panel.

  There was another groan, and on the ceiling, strips of some kind of unknown metal illuminated. "Ah," Alim said, gesturing toward them as he glared at Liam. "There you go." But the door was still shut.

  Another series of clangs rang out, echoing against the ruin's stone walls, and the pod shook, knocking Alim into the dashboard. Muted pain spread across his hip and that panic returned.

  "Jack!" Sylvestra hurried to the window, bracing herself against the dashboard next to Alim. "What is happening?"

  "I'm so sorry, my colleagues." Alim looked out again to find Jack toying more with the controls, and the vessel rocked with another vibration. Alim could see the metal arms of the pod station quivering as gears and other bits shifted. The pod was releasing from the dock.

  Jack was releasing the pod from the dock.

  Liam stormed over with a lupine snarl as the same realization dawned on him. "Damn it!" He slammed a palm against the window, and Jack jumped at the sound. "You want to take that find for yourself?"

  "I am so, so sorry!" He sounded like he meant it, but that didn't stop him from twisting another dial, causing the lights to flood red. That couldn't have been good. "It's just… an entire demon cadaver. And all of you are so…" He spread his hands apologetically, as though he could apologize for what he was doing. "I would be overshadowed by your reputations, and knowing all of your own ruthless ambitions, I hate to think of what you might do to me to secure this project and its findings to your own names."