Page 128 of A Drop of Corruption
My eyes fluttered again, and I recalled more of Darhi’s words:Did you see the silver circlet on the prince’s brow? And the silver chain about his neck?…Those are the signifiers of the king’s chosen heir. The silvers go to him—andonlyto him.
No,I thought.No, no, it is insane.
Yet it would fit. A necklace might have once draped here, in the hands of these crude totems, as if to keep the signifiers of one’s birthright safe in the hands of the ancestors.
My father expects me to die here.
To die here. Of course.
A tapping filled the air. Then Ghrelin’s voice, speaking for the male augur: “He knows. He has seen a truth. One invisible even to our eyes.”
The woman, pleading: “Tell us. Please, tell us.”
“Is there more?” I demanded.
“Tell us,” tapped the man. “Please, please, tell us what you know. We starve for it.”
“Is there more?” I asked again. “More to show me, or more to tell?”
The woman’s fingers danced on her board: “We know no more. This is all we have, and it is not enough.”
I stood up, quaking. I had to leave, to return to Ana, to spill all I’d seen here as quickly as I could, for I could not carry this dreadful secret for long.
“Please,” said the man, standing and tapping. “Please, please, we beg you, tell us.”
“I can’t,” I said. “You know that.”
Then the woman: “No, no. Do you know what it is like for weaugurs to possess too small a piece of information? Enough to tantalize, but not enough to comprehend?”
The man: “And to have it for this man of all men, this one of all we augurs? Can you imagine how this torments us?”
I studied them. I’d thought them inhuman and alien when I’d first seen them, yet the plaintive, pained looks in their eyes were ones I knew very well. I’d seen such sights often in my work, among those who grieved the dead and the missing: still human, and helpless, and still so full of hurt.
“I can say no more than you already know,” I said. “Sunus Pyktis lived a story while he was among you. In doing this I believe he harmed not only you but himself as well. If you find me when your term is over, I shall tell you all I know.”
They stared at me, despondent. The woman’s fingers tapped: “When we leave this place, we shall no longer be these things.”
The man: “This will be as a dream. Sunus will be as a dream.”
“I’m sorry,” I said to them. “But I can say no more.”
I stooped to rouse Ghrelin from his trance. Yet the female augur shot to her feet, her fingers flickering on her board.
“And if you are wrong?” Ghrelin said, still mumbling her words. “If you are wrong about all this, about Pyktis, about everything? What then? For this was not projected. It wasnotforeseen. It was not!”
I helped Ghrelin to stand and gently guided him away.
Still she tapped, and still he spoke, whispering beside me: “You are wrong, you are wrong, you are wrong! This was not predicted! You are wrong, wrong, youmustbe wrong!”
Chapter 47
The journey back to Yarrowdalewas strange and uneasy. All I’d seen of the Shroud had been like a nightmare: the rippling green husk of the veil; the sight of the trembling marrow, bound within the shining moss; and then the augurs themselves, who had at first seemed so inhuman, yet in the end had proven so vulnerable and despairing.
And then there was the truth I’d spied in that awful place, which boiled in my mind like a hot ball of iron dropped into a cooling bucket. I had to be rid of it, for otherwise it might burn me up.
Once ashore, Ghrelin and I were led to yet another Apoth observation chamber, and washed and cleaned again, and then plied with many blotley larvae of different colors. I grimaced as they pulled the horrid things from me; I still had not healed from my first blotley, and Sanctum only knew how long the new ones would persist.
It took some hours for me to pass my tests, but pass them I did, while Ghrelin was rushed away to recuperate from the effects of the augury. I asked one of the Apoths to thank him for his service and wish him well, then hurried to dress as they processed my release. The door opened before me, and I rushed outside.
