Page 50 of A Trade of Blood

“Achieved this by breeding it in waters full of human corpses? As mad as it sounds, I can think of no other way! That is the only known method of training the fungus. Perhaps there was a flooded sepulcher, or tomb, or battlefield from the titans…Grisly to speculate, true?”

There was an unpleasant silence. Tauri glanced back at the surgery bay. “Ah!” he said. “The threadvine ripens.”

I squinted at the vats of soil about Zansay’s head. Tiny, pale filaments began to emerge and then creep across the table, seeking out her skull. They attached themselves to the lines of purple reagent Tauri had painted there. More sprouted and did the same, until they grew quite dense. It was like watching someone work a loom, creating a horrid, glistening tapestry about the girl’s shaved pate.

“It will take a bit longer for it to split her head,” murmured Tauri. “Remarkable, is it not? The human skull is strong enough to withstand numerous blows—yet we’ve taught a simple weed to part it as if it were cold tallow…” He sipped his concoction again, pulled a face, and muttered, “So much damned calcium in these aquifers…”

“Tell me how the web conditions the cats, please, Commander,” said Ana. “I know there are notes, tunes, pitches, and the pipes—but how do these get written into the brains of the little bastards?”

“Well, it’s not just a matter of tones,” said Tauri. “The right tones must be played in the rightorder.First, there’s the awakening tone. Makes all the fungal growths in the host’s brain wake up, makes its ears sensitive to the proper pitches. The host is now receptive to the next stage, theconditioningtones—the pitches played to associate a specific behavior with a specificact.They play these tones while the act is performed the first time, and the creature will then be compelled to reenact it whenever they hear that same tune after.”

“But this version of the web doesn’t spread, or fruit, or kill them?” asked Ana.

“Well, no…that’s notquitecorrect. The more the host hears the conditioning tones, and reenacts their performance, then the more the fungus shall spread in the host’s brain, until…” He trailed off.

“Until it cracks out of their head,” I said, aghast, “like a duckling from a damned egg?”

“More or less, yes. Or, thatwouldhappen if the cat herders and bean farmers didn’t treat the cats to prevent this very thing. They mix a medicine in with their feed, I’m told, to ensure the web is held in check.”

“It all sounds like fucking madness!” said Ana. “All the cats of this entire damned region could fruit from the skull if they skipped theirmedicine?”

“That was the issueweidentified when the plan was first proposed,” sighed Tauri. “But the cat-trainers have also conditioned the cats to consume the medicine to ensure this never happens. Thus, we were told, all is well…”

“And what happens if the little beasts miss the dose?”

“Then they, ah, begin to exhibit very curious behaviors. And the web spreads each time they hear the notes of the pipe, until it kills them.”

Ana stopped rocking, face taut. “What manner of behaviors? Might the web affect their sleep?”

Tauri blinked in surprise. “Hum! You ask me for much when you already seem to know all! Yes, true—the cats begin re-creating their conditioned behaviors while they sleep.Nocturnal disruptions,they called it in early tests. The cats wander about their enclosures as if sleepwalking, attempting to pick beans or anything that even slightly resembles them.”

I thought rapidly while I absorbed this. It all made a dreadful sense: Castus had dreamed of serving in the flensing halls; Sagma and Gevma had dreamed of being kept still, standing in their rooms. It suddenly seemed very likely they had been conditioned to do exactly these acts.

Tauri glanced between us. “This means something to you.”

“All the Armenta children experienced very curious dreams,” saidAna, “before abruptly behaving very strangely—suicides, hangings, accidents, murders. You see the shape of it.”

“Yes, but…I can’t quite comprehend that,” said Tauri slowly. “The web is used to conditionsimpleactions within cats—picking fruit or going to a specific location. But you are talking abouthangings,yes? That can’t be so, because more complex actions are much more difficult! Such a feat should be beyond its capabilities!”

“Unless,” said Ana, “this is athirdkind of web that can do something new. Which we suspect more or less is the exact case, since it can now infest human beings!”

At that, Tauri was struck silent. An unsettlingcreakissued from Zansay Burav’s head—her skull trembled a little—but it did not split.

“If that’s so,” Tauri said quietly, “then I’ll have to alert my superiors in my order. I’ll need specialists, trackers, testers from the Orbiis and the Apoths to ensure the fungus hasn’t spread.” He sighed and sipped at his concoction.

“But if it did,” said Ana archly, “wouldn’t it be spreading through the water, sir?”

He paused, lips puckered. He glanced down at his brew, then swallowed. “No fear there, I’m afraid. My body is so sensitive, I’d taste the web quite easily. This well is clear—has a bit too much sulfur in it for my liking, true—but there are dozens if not hundreds of other wells in the city.”

“Can you test them?”

“The technique is easy enough. It is a mere scrap of paper. When it’s dipped in waters with a high concentration of the fungus, its hue changes. It would work on any reservoirs or foodstuff or even the saliva of the hosts. But a test isn’t always accurate, especially on the human body! It can take time for the fungus to build up in a host until the test proclaims them infected.”

“And if they are infected,” I said, “is there a cure?”

“Well, a cure is…harder. This is aneuro-fungus. It infests the brain. We can do many wondrous things in the Empire, but anything with the brain is delicate and difficult.”

“Meaning?” demanded Ana.