Chapter 43

It would have been more prudent not to enter Scholomance at all, even if they were only lingering by the antechamber, but Maryam had been curious.

She’d been back in Scholomance for classes since her obscuration, but that’d meant moving with purpose. In and out, no frills. Today she had time to spare while waiting, exploring how different the place had come to feel. With her sister in her eye, they could even make out the ripples that betrayed the presence of the god in the walls – and who they were taking to.

Tristan, arms crossed as he leaned against the wall, had a hundred small eddies in the aether around him. As if Scholomance liked the taste of him. An empty shrine, Maryam thought. A celebrant without a god. With Fortuna missing, Tristan had become honey for a certain sort of god. Scholomance’s attention would not harm him, though, at least not directly.

So Maryam left him to his vigil, eyes on the door, and let her nav taste of the air. It was hard to define the changes that had taken place in it, even with her sister being that nav. Captain Yue had called it a refinement, and there was truth in that – she’d felt the difference when she dueled Diego on Lamb Hill, how their nav had been like iron to his wood. But there was more to it than that. It felt… not larger, but perhaps denser?

Yet no less sensitive for it, which was a relief. A not-insignificant portion of Control was sensing when you were pulling or clutching at Gloam too hard. Maryam could feel that her nav had grown somehow, but she struggled to grasp how.

A metallic snap drew her out of her thoughts, Tristan closing the lid of the watch she’d not noticed him pulling out. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“How long?” she asked.

“Fifty minutes,” Tristan replied. “She’ll be under by now.”

Maryam allowed herself a faint wince. Ishanvi’s madness in insisting resumption of the room trials now that she had passed the last of her examinations – another mad thing, to have finished all her final exams not even two months into the year – was making them all step on nails. Her holding brigade, the worst sort of useless layabouts, couldn’t be bothered to accompany her even though she was headed into the Lugar Vacio.

That was obviously unacceptable, so Maryam and Tristan had drafted themselves to wait for her by the entrance and ensure she didn’t fall apart afterwards. For now, that meant a lot of waiting.

Maryam was mostly pleased that Tristan wasn’t deniably avoiding her anymore. It’d been hard to tell earlier, since joining the campaign for the Lord of Teeth had meant the expansion of common brigade time, but little things had shown her they were… well, perhaps not reconciled but at least somewhat mended. Still, the private conversation she’d thought he had promised her when she had signed away the shares of the skimmer had been no such thing.

When Maryam bridged the subject the night after he’d been almost curt, reminding her that he had already made it plain he had no intention of discussing anything between them while robbed of his patron. That has not changed, nor will it, he’d said.

Still, even that was not enough to dim her mood too much. When she woke up in the morning, these days, there was something lighter about it. As if some of the anger in her had finally been burned out, put to proper use. It was… freeing, to know that she was doing something. Even if at the moment that something was mostly waiting on Admiral Zokufa of the Western Fleet. Besides, it did not mean she had to wait in all things.

She’d taken to taking meals with the Orels when she could spare the time – once a week, a burden on her schedule easily borne – and now made it a point to linger afterwards, to share words that were not orders or arrangements. That, too, was lightening the weight her shoulders. Gods, she even slept better these days.

“Eyes up,” Tristan suddenly said.

Maryam snapped back at attention, hand hiding in her sleeve even as Hooks slipped out of her unseen. It was not enemies that awaited them but a small company of blackcloaks, striding through the great hall. Two were easily recognizable from a distance – Professor Sasan, with his stubble and glasses, while by his side stood Professor Formosa. He must have been the one to handle the tether. On the other side stood a pair of garrison men, one of them holding a roseless compass while the other had a musket shouldered.

In the middle of them, stumbling forward like the living dead, was Ishanvi Kapadia. Maryam’s stomach clenched at the sight of her: her hair disheveled under the net, the red stripes on her face that looked like nails marks and the way that under her spectacles her eyes kept moving. She flinched every time someone brushed up against her.

“Fuck,” Tristan muttered, and she could only agree.

There was no good way to go through the Lugar Vacio, but Ishanvi didn’t look like she’d gone through one of the lighter journeys. They met the other blackcloaks at the door of the great hall, Professor Formosa granting her a nod before leaving with the escorts. Professor Sasan stayed a few beats longer.

“Ah, good, someone is waiting for her,” he smiled at Maryam. “I trust you’ll see her safely back to town?”

She nodded mutely, watching as Tristan urged forward a startled-looking Ishanvi without ever actually touching her.

“How bad was it, sir?” she asked.

“She was nearly catatonic at first,” he said, pushing up his spectacles. “This is already a stark improvement. Still, I expect that staying with friends who have a notion of what the experience was like will help a great deal.”

Maryam almost grimaced. She couldn’t truly claim that, in fact. She’d been pushing all her fear onto Hooks, so the experience had been muted for her. As if summoned by the thought her sister slipped out of her shadow, to barely a raised eyebrow from Sasan Tenoch. Of all the teachers he had adapted quickest to her new presence in class – save for Kang, arguably, who had immediately evicted her for not being on his student list.

Maryam’s anger there had been muted by the fact that’d actually been a little funny.

“We’ll get her home,” Hooks said, flicking a glance of dislike at the ceiling.

Finding traces of Scholomance there, no doubt. The god was creeping everywhere, as looking to claw back the full meal it had been cheated out of.

“In your hands, then,” Professor Sasan lightly said. “A good evening to you then, Khaimovs.”

He added and Abrascal after a moment, getting an absent-minded nod from Tristan for it. They shepherded a twitchy Ishanvi outside, and when out on the plaza – stone beneath her feet, empty room around her – the bespectacled girl suddenly sped up. Maryam hastened after, Hooks slipping back under her skin, but she’d worried for nothing. Ishanvi all but crumbled after a dozen steps, and she knelt by her to help her back up.

“Sorry,” Ishanvi rasped. “I wanted to get out, but my legs are… wobbly.”

“I am a Navigator,” Maryam reminded her. “The wobbles are one of the several inevitable curses of my profession, so you could say I’m not unfamiliar.”

Ishanvi allowed herself to be helped up, but when Tristan approached Maryam felt her tense against her side. She swallowed a curse. Something had happened inside that’d had to do with a man.

“Sit by the fountain,” Maryam suggested. “I just need a word with Tristan.”

Ishanvi nodded, tottering away with a docility that was sickening, and she found his face was blank when she reached him.

“You don’t need to tell me,” he murmured. “I thought it was all touches, at first, but it’s not that.”

The four blackcloaks inside had all been men as well, Maryam recalled.

“I’m sure it’s nothing-”

He gestured dismissively.

“It does not need justification,” Tristan said, and she could have kissed him for it. “I’ll be around but out of sight. Try to get her in town if you can, yes?”

Her fingers brushed his sleeve and he smiled at her as she nodded. She heard him mention to Ishanvi that an emergency demanded his departure, the both of them pretending not to see the poorly hidden relief on her face, and as Ishanvi got a goodbye out Maryam sat besides her on the edge of the empty fountain. They both watched Tristan head towards the bridge, past which he soon vanished from sight. Ishanvi swallowed.

“He noticed, didn’t he?” she asked.

“He also remembers what it’s like, going through that room,” Maryam said, her tone firm.

Like that closed the avenue of conversation, because it did. Ishanvi breathed out shakily putting her face in her hands, and let out a wet sob. Maryam uncomfortably laid a hand on her back, let her weep it out. Her own crying felt nothing like what this looked like, always… angry, in a way. But there was more than one way to lance bad blood.

“Fetters,” Ishanvi rasped. “I had no idea. It just… kept going.”

Maryam gave her the silence she would have wished for in her place.

“I was a prisoner in my own body,” Ishanvi whispered. “For years. I could see out of my eyes even as I became some sort of… guest inside myself. I married like that, Maryam, I had children.”

“It fed deeper on you than most,” Maryam quietly said.

“Should I be proud?” the girl half-sobbed. “Oh, gods. I can almost still feel the touch on my skin.”

“You got out,” she said. “And this time you know it’s not real.”

“Is it?” Ishanvi whispered. “Or was it right – do I already have a seed inside me, waiting to grow. To usurp me?”

She shivered, then again from something else entirely. That little creature of hers was burrowing its way up her collar, popping its lotus-flower head and letting out a little yip. A smile touched Ishanvi’s lips, then as the creature made small murmurs her brow creased.

“You’re sure?”

The little pale thing nodded, Maryam’s eyes sharpening at the display of intelligence, Ishanvi softly rubbed its head to keening cries of pleasure.

“It can understand you,” she said, fascinated. “I’ve never heard of a lares that size capable of it.”

“She’s not a lares,” Ishanvi said, chewing her lip.

A look through her spectacles.

“It could get me in trouble, having her,” she said.

Maryam nodded, almost amused. Like they hadn’t all come to the Unluckies bearing some sort of terrible secret. At least hers made endearing squeaky noises.

“She’s a drop of blood,” Ishanvi whispered. “From the Moonclad.”

It took a moment for Maryam to place which god that was, then she choked.

“The goddess of knowledge, music and language?” she got out. “Ishanvi, that’s almost a second-order entity. She’s one of the most important deities in the entire-”

She swallowed the rest of that tirade under Ishanvi’s ruefully amused gaze, recognizing the absurdity in explaining the intricacies of the Someshwari pantheon to an actual Someshwari.

“And it’s… aware?” Maryam asked, fascinated.

Ishanvi nodded.

“Somewhat,” she said. “She grows. Any time she comes close to written knowledge, it becomes part of her.”

Maryam choked again, to the other girl’s visible enjoyment.

“As in she remembers it?”

“Every book she’s ever been close to,” Ishanvi murmured. “No matter the language.”

“There are kings that would burn cities to possess her,” Maryam flatly said.

And there Ishanvi sobered.

“Which is why I do not, officially,” she said.

Maryam had a hundred questions on the tip of her tongue – how had she gotten the creature, did the Watch know, why did it listen to her – but much as she hated to push down her curiosity now was not the time. She suspected Ishanvi might have sat on that secret for a while longer, if not for a desperate need to think of anything but the Lugar Vacio. So instead she rose to her feet, remembering Tristan’s request that they keep moving.

“Then our friend had best go into hiding again,” she said.

The lotus-head turned to her, letting out a defiant squeak.

“None of that guff now, girl,” Maryam warned her. “I get enough of it from Sakkas already-”

The mere mention of that name had the creature burrowing back under the collar, squeaking in alarm, and Ishanvi palmed her forehead.

“Do I want to know?” Maryam asked.

“Probably not,” Ishanvi said, groaning as she rose to her feet. “I think I’d like to drink something if that’s all right.”

“Water or liquor?” Maryam asked.

“Yes,” Ishanvi replied.

That could be arranged. Maryam would say that for Port Allazei: you never had to try too hard to find a drink.

—

It was inevitable for you to make mistakes, Song knew.

No amount of training could prepare for every circumstance, make one’s judgment ever flawless in the heat of the moment. The best you could hope for was for those mistakes to be minor and quiet, but in this regard the year had dashed her hopes. And how quickly, too! It was only the sixteenth of the second month and already the Unluckies had made the round of rumor several times – as lunatics, as victors, as victims and as bullies. Soon there would be no fresh hats left for them to wear.

But the boat had not tipped over, it was still in the water and sailing forward.

Song must thus tend to her own mistakes among the lot, and ensure she never again fumbled the bag so badly that her brigade could walk into an ambush set in broad glarelight and not another soul would object. That abject failure of positioning was on her head, and she would not suffer that the Unluckies be lashed for her failings twice. No, this time she would position the Thirteenth most carefully.

That was how she came to sit inside the Han Ya teahouse, gracefully moving through the steps of the tea ceremony just as Mother had taught her. The room was all polished wood and bamboo pillars, with a window to the courtyard garden where mossy trees grew among stone. Song brewed the Shouxing redleaf then poured for her guest and for herself – right hand on the handle, left on the lid – before leaning back to appreciate the brew.

Captain Sebastian Camaron, who had quite obviously been trained in the ceremony, only then began to speak as was proper according to tradition. He breathed in the scent, commented on the fragrance for which the leaf was known and asked as to the provenance of the water.

“It is done properly,” Song told him. “Collected rainwater, the highest grade of water.”

Straight from the Heavens, as was said in the Republics. There could be none purer. No doubt Camaron knew this, but idle walk was just as much part of the ceremony as the intricate cups and the formal hanfu Song had paired with elements of her ceremonial uniform. Only after they savored the taste and discussed it – Camaron quoted an old rhyme from the Classics in impeccable Cathayan, to her reluctant admiration – did they settle down to drink their cups.

And get to why they were here in the first place.

“My brigade has found what we believe to be a viable route to the dantesvara,” Song mildly said.

Sebastian Camaron looked not the least surprised as he sipped at his cup.

“I would never accused such a gracious hostess of… misdirection,” he said, “but the way your brigade has also been buying up planks and gravel in town suggests that instead you have found what could become a viable route.”

It was Song’s turn to sip at her cup. True enough. When the Thirteenth and the broken pieces of the Thirty-First had set out in the rain last seventhday, the day’s work had yielded a mostly flat path through the brushlands that Izel believed cannons might be carried through – if slowly. And finding it in the rain had been lucky, in a way, as it immediately revealed the weakness of the route. Several parts of it were bare stone which turned into murky ponds after a few hours of rain and remained so for days after.

Hole-filling with gravel and a few ramps were necessary for the path to be usable more than a day or two out of the week, and that meant work. Which in turn meant a need for more hands, a need to protect those hands while they labored and thus a very exposed supply line – to both lemures and competitors. The most dangerous of the latter was currently sitting across from her.

“It is a simple matter of time and effort,” Song smiled, “insofar as these things are ever simple.”

He smiled back, amused or faking it well. The first thing taught any Stripe was that no fieldwork was ever simple. If it were, there would be no need for the likes of them.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“It is polite of you to inform me,” Sebastian said, inclining his head. “Thank you for the courtesy.”

But he did not move on by changing the subject, leaving the door open. He merely wanted it to make it plain who was the one coming to the other for aid. Song would let him have that, for just a moment.

“Not mere politeness,” she demurred. “After your brigade also caught sight of the Lord of Teeth – for which I extent my congratulations-“

He inclined his head in thanks.

“-it became clear to me that the creature does not have multiple lairs but a single one: a series of connected caves dug into the flanks of the raised grounds between the middle and western canal.”

The Ninth Brigade and their hired hands had encountered the dantesvara at the end of the middle canal, finding the mouth of a tunnel headed west. They had wisely declined to venture inside, though they lingered around long enough to find a nearby secondary entrance leading into Rhodon Bay – similar to the one Song’s crew had. Sebastian let out a small hum as he sipped his tea.

“That has been our conclusion as well,” he conceded. “Jayati believes they are natural collapses expanded upon by the local pataricos. The filthy things apparently prefer to whelp inside protected coves.”

Jayati Banerjee, Song clarified inside her mind. A Navigator, but one from the Banerjee scholar clan with all the Savituri connections that implied. And while the Savituri orders had long been rumored to dabble in the very dark arts they were charged with checking, only fools denied there were among the finest teratologists of Vesper. Sometimes it felt like half the readings in Teratology had been penned by one of them.

“Neither of us has the numbers to cover both sides,” Song said. “Much less attempt to carry out a more elaborate plan. And while the path you have uncovered is functional, reaching it involves sailing a barge – one unable to bear the weight of cannons, unless I’m mistaken. To fight at an advantage, my crew’s find is the most promising.”

“That is true,” Captain Sebastian agreed. “Only my plant in your hunting crew has already delivered me the details of your route and I can raise allies much more easily than you. What do I need the Thirteenth for, Captain Song?”

The blunt admission of spying was a test, and Song did not let herself fail it by showing irritation or surprise. Tristan had already shared his suspicion, besides, so the only sliver of surprise she’d felt had been over Camaron’s directness. Instead she made herself smile back, sipping at her cup.

“You are free to believe this, of course,” she said.

A moment passed, and she caught a flicker of unease in his eyes. She was not reacting at all as he had planned. Perhaps he had credited her with wits enough not to be angry over the spying, but he had expected negotiations to continue. Not a polite withdrawal. To his skillfully hidden surprise – though it took more than skill to fool her eyes – she then changed the subject, as if closing the door on the matter.

They parted ways soon after, and Song allowed herself a private smile. Camaron’s expectation of continued negotiations was entirely correct: she merely wasn’t continuing them with him. She’d sent out the letter ahead of her trek to the Han Ya teahouse, and was pleased to learn from the attendants in front she’d received an answer while hosting the captain of the Ninth.

Unsurprisingly, after Song was publicly seen in the most expensive teahouse of Port Allazei with her sworn rival Captain Nenetl Chapul was all too eager to meet with her.

The silver-eyed Tianxi wasted no time, crossing the Triangle to meet Captain Nenetl at Dreg’s Draughts where the other woman had written she’d reserved a room for the evening. Song made sure to take her time crossing the common room. To be recognized, and be seen speaking with the member of the Third waiting by the door – Jeronimo de Aznarez, that brigade’s Skiritai. The man’s eyes were cold as he waved her in, to find Nenetl Chapul waiting at a table in her fighting fit with a map and bottle of plum wine.

Rather less formal an arrangement than the last, but not displeasingly so.

“Captain Chapul,” she greeted, inclining her head.

“I’ve told you to call me Nenetl,” the round-faced woman chided, rising to greet her.

Nenetl Chapul was tall but equally plump, which made the delicacy of her face stand out all the more. She was almost doll-like in her features, though there was nothing delicate about the callouses in her hand – she was rumored to be one of the finest blades among the Stripes.

“If you insist, Nenetl,” Song smiled, sliding into a seat.

Nenetl uncorked the bottle and poured them both a cup, deft hand not spilling a drop. Only then did she sit back down, the movement so smooth that with the table hiding it Song would not have guessed she’d lost much of her leg a mere six weeks past.

“Should I ask how your talks with Sebastian went?” Nenetl all too casually asked.