Page 57 of A Trade of Blood

“My mother was ill. My master permitted me to care for her until she recovered.”

“When did you leave and return to the house?”

He provided me with the dates, and I made a careful note of it. “Did any of the other servants in the banquet hall take their leave? Or leave the house, as you did?”

“I don’t know. I doubt it. We are devoted servants. Why do you ask this, sir?”

I ignored him and moved on, asking him if he had seen any trespassers, or spied any lights in the forests, or noticed any strange behavior among the Buravs or their servants. Bewildered, he told me no to all of these—except when I asked him about their sleep.

“How odd to hear you ask this,” he said. “Because…yes, I do recall such a thing. Master Burilis himself mentioned he had not been sleeping well. As did his aunt, Daqi. And…and my friend Miss Qurban.”

“Did they say why?” I asked. “Did theydream,perhaps?”

“Yes! Yes, they did…They said they’d had the most awful nightmares. Dreams about being trapped, there in the house. Unable to move, unable to leave. Why? How did you know of this?”

“When?” I asked sharply. “When did they complain of this?”

“Well—just after I got back. It was like a shadow had been cast over all the house since I’d been gone.”

“And did you dream at all?”

“No, sir? Again, why? What does this mean?”

I thanked him and let the medikkers take him. Then I stood there, gazing at the ashen house, still steaming and smoking, the air still dancing with flakes of black.

Dreams, and quiet screaming.

I took a breath, waved to Princeps Seriv, and pulled him aside.

“Send a rider to the Orbiis facility in Lacanthim,” I sighed. “And find Commander Tauri. He should be finishing his analysis of Zansay Burav. I need him brought here right away.”

Seriv closed his eyes. “Yes. It’s the web, then.”

“Inarguably. Someone infected and conditioned an entire mansion, including the servants and staff. The question, then, is how—and who else?”

Chapter 16

Though Commander Tauri had seemeda rather comical, loopy figure in my previous encounters with him, when he and his team arrived at the Burav estate they were anything but: they spoke quickly and brusquely, and spread throughout the estate grounds with an air of aggravated competence, as if they were Legionnaires here to set up a bombard site before nightfall.

Tauri himself was the most changed, severely rattling off a list of orders to me: “…must ensure that no one who has dwelt on these grounds leaves it, Signum, at least not today! I can’t risk anyone infected getting out.”

“I did not think humans could spread it, sir?” I said, startled.

“They can if theydie!” he said, exasperated. “And then their heads shall fruit, and distribute spores in nearby waters, where the fungus can then mature and infest any other humans that drink enough of it! But let us confirm the primary infection point first.” He turned to Seriv. “Where is the main Burav well, Princeps?”

Seriv led us to the well, which was stationed within a small, charming fretvine building to the south of the ruins. Though it was lined with all manner of cleansing mosses, Tauri and the other Orbiis officers flinched when we drew the first bucket from its depths. “I see a cloudiness here,” Tauri said softly. “A web structure in the water. But I’ll confirm…”

He produced a wheel of dyed green parchment, tore off a strip,and dipped it in the waters. Instantly, the dampened parchment turned a bright orange.

“Then it’s so,” he said. “Someone has tainted the well with the guiding web. I suspect nearlyallthe servants are infected—though only some, as you reported, are conditioned…How many served on the Burav estate?”

“Some hundred or so people, sir,” said Seriv. “Perhaps more.”

“A hundred potential hosts…” said Tauri softly. “I will need a survey of all water sources on the property. The irrigation networks of Lacanthim are terribly intertangled, and the first order of business is confirming that the web hasn’t spread downstream to any other reservoir! In the meantime, we test each individual.”

The tests were quickly passed among all who resided on the Burav estate. The process was as simple as licking a torn piece of the green parchment: those pieces that turned orange indicated the host was infected.

And nearly all of them were. Indeed, a pattern became almost immediately apparent: every person who had lived in the Burav mansion was infected; those servants who resided in their own homes or more distant servant quarters—gamekeepers, stable folk, grooms, and so on—were not.