Page 37 of A Trade of Blood

“I thought that obvious, ma’am.”

“I was observing a failing, boy—because you have missed a connection that seems notable. Take note. Lyimo killed himself some three years ago, true?”

“True, ma’am.”

“But there was anotherunusualphenomenon that began three years ago, true?”

I blinked. Then, slowly, the memory swam up within the dark depths of my skull. “Oh. The lights in the forest…”

“Correct! Seriv did not provide us with a precise timeline, but it certainlysoundslike the mysterious flashing lights in that ancient, altered wood began three years ago—right about when Lyimo Armenta took a deep dive in a shallow pond and never came up! Isn’t that terribly interesting?”

I struggled with this for a moment, bewildered. “But…what connection could there possibly be between the two?”

“Oh, I’ve no idea. Were I a fool, I would say it makes a crude sense—the Daljen stir in their tombs in the forest and shift their doom onto the Armentas! But I need not reach so far for explanation. We’ve a feud between the gentry, and money, and land—that is reason enough for me to think the genesis for these crimes is all too human. Yet as with all things concerning that elder race…it gets rather tricky, true?”

I stayed silent. I had not wished her to broach this subject, but there seemed to be no avoiding it now.

“Most of old history gets painted with a rather broad brush,” said Ana softly. “Folk these days know a good deal of the race of the Khanum—and yet they also know nothing at all. It is known, for example, that those fabled people emerged from the Valley of Khanum hundreds of years ago. It’s known they changed themselves drastically, making themselves strong, brilliant—and strange. It’s known the Khanum worked many wonders, some of which still persist. And it’s known they all vanished, of course—save for one, who now inhabits the great Sanctum at the core of all the Empire, and has not been seen by mortal eyes in many a year.” She bent lower, her yellow eyes fixed on the floor, her pale fingers tracing the curls of the fretvine. “Yet few know they weren’t some exotic, uniform, fantastical species, butpeople.They had families, houses, titles, tribes. There were the Daavir, of course, the clan of the emperor, long may he persist. The Daljen were another house and were considered the mightiest of all the Khanum—for a fleeting moment, at least. Like all their kin, they faded and vanished…but the Daljen vanishedfirst,nearly a century before all others. As to why, that is not known.”

The rain rose outside, pattering over the domed roof. A few fretvine leaves along the walls trembled, as if exulting in the moisture.

“We now find ourselves in a rather queer stretch of creation, Din!” Ana continued. “In the inner rings of the Empire, there are many old things made by the Khanum that still exist, and gounquestioned. The folk there have fashioned a manner of living with the inexplicable. Closer to the Outer Rim, people organize their lives around the wet seasons, and the horrors of the deeps—which are even less understood.” She laughed darkly. “And here we are in the third ring! Pressed between the old works of the Khanum, and the seasonal madness of the leviathans! We’ve much unearthliness about—but no spirits, nor ghosts, nor gods. There are none at all in the Empire, I think.”

“No, ma’am?” I said.

“No.” A cold, nasty smile. “For if gods existed, shouldn’t the world make more sense? Shouldn’t all feel more stable, more comprehensible? I consider myself a wise thing, yet when I consider creation, I see little but blind hunger and the ravages of nature. The only order to be found is what we’ve put there, boy.” She slipped her blindfold back on, dug up a book, and began reading. “Let us go to the Armentas tomorrow, then, and see what order can be found in the deaths of Velona’s children. After that, we shall recruit the Orbiis to read the entrails of young Zansay Burav. Perhaps we shall spy some glint of the future in her viscera, just like the prophets of old.”

—

I sat onmy mossbed in my chambers, listening as the rain intensified on the fretvine roof. How strange it felt to be in this place, where so much history hung over me—both personal and otherwise.

Just last year, Ana had revealed to me that her enhanced, unnatural brilliance was not like the abilities of any other imperial servant. Rather, she’d been successfully altered to possess the powers—or at leastsomeof the powers—of the Khanum themselves. When and why this had been done to her of all people—why she had been chosen as the person in whom to resurrect that long-lost race—Idid not know. Nor did I know why she still seemed a small, rather skinny woman rather than the towering giants of the stories.

More, I knew I would likely never learn any answers. Ana had also been conditioned—perhaps in the same manner that Burav conditioned his field cats—so she could not speak of any of this withoutinflicting great pain on herself. This suited me fine: I did not wish to ask, and she was not able to answer.

After this revelation, my service to her had seemed a noble thing. She was a valuable, powerful being, yet a frail one, and needed protection. But sometimes I was forced to wonder.

What manner of being was Ana? Why had the Khanum, masters of so many strange arts, been unable to save themselves? And why had their line been revivified in her blood, of all people?

The rain swelled and faded about me. I lay down, shut my eyes, and tried to banish these thoughts from my mind.

Chapter 11

The carriage ride east tothe Armenta lands was only marginally more comfortable than our trip to Lacanthim the day before. Though I’d rested well, both the dinner and breakfast I’d been served at the Green Drover had been replete with beef and sweet tallow—and while they tasted delicious, I was unused to their heaviness. In the Iyalets, we mostly dined on rice and lentils, as these offered plenty of nutrition, were cheap and easy to transport, and had also been augmented to appeal to the human palate. This much animal flesh was new to my digestion and had lingering effects. With each bump, a greasy bubble came bubbling up from my innards, followed by a reprimand from Ana: “Keep your filthy air in your own goddamned body, boy!”

When we first entered the Armenta spreads—demarcated, of course, by the high, trellised “bird-perch” gates of the gentry—my first impression was one of a great agricultural power. The pastures were rich and green, with drovers and hands atop destriers flitting this way and that, lances glittering in the sunlight.

More impressive than these were their herds. Each urhosi cow was easily as large as the carriage I now rode in, and sported so much bulk that I wondered how their legs kept them upright. It became very easy to understand why the drovers of this land needed destriers: a normal horse would be like a small dog to these creatures.

But though the urhosi were magnificent, I could spy colorations to their joints, and backs, and shoulders: a purpling here, a bulge ofbone there. They had been grafted and altered, manipulated to grow to such tremendous sizes, and then reinforced in countless places to support such weight. Each cow had to have been fed enough reagents and tinctures to breed a whole cohort of augmented Legionnaires. How odd it was, to imagine the amount of wealth poured into each specimen, only to be sliced and served upon a plate.

But as we neared the clan seat of Aimafall, the mood of our surroundings changed. The herds dwindled and vanished. Then came the statues placed on either side of the road, depicting tall, narrowly built, humanlike figures, each one offering a gift to travelers: a chalice, a rod, a branch of a fruiting tree. Many of the figures had a symbol engraved upon their brows, one I did not recognize: two spheres separated by a single vertical line.

Though they were beautiful statues, immaculately carved from dark stone, I could only think of them as “humanlike” as opposed to simply human: there was something strange to the shapings of their cheeks and brows, and their fingers (did I spy one knuckle too many there?) that made me think they were not common folk.

These had to be the celestial Daljen, I assumed. I did not describe these to Ana, for I had no desire to bring up this subject again.

Once we passed these first stone heralds, however, things grew even stranger. I spied fretvine constructs hanging along the roads: little cages dangling from staves, some containing papers, others urns and ceramic vessels. Some held what appeared to be the carcasses of small birds. Each cage was festooned with long, colorful ribbons painted with symbols, and they twisted and twirled in the gentle breeze.