Page 90 of A Trade of Blood

“That whatever choked the life from her, it was not a rope, I suppose. Something smoother, and smaller. I can’t imagine what—or not yet.”

“Is it relevant?”

“If it was a garrote,” I said, “and not a rope, then it’s very relevant indeed.”

We finally moved on to Lyimo. After another daubing of hissing fluid, the top of his cocoon was free, and we removed the lid of his casket.

Then we paused.

Whereas the other two had sported a great boiling of old, rotting stalks at the tops of their caskets, for Lyimo the showing was much, much reduced. A bare few handful of stalks had wormed their way out of his skull, hardly more than a few smallspan long. It made me think of a seed that had just tasted rain and put a few tiny, delicate leaves out to catch the sun.

“Hum!” said Tauri, intrigued. “This is…quite unexpected! This was thefirstvictim killed, yes?”

“True, we think so. He was the first of the three to perish. Why is he so different?”

“I’m not sure!” said Tauri. He leaned close to the miserable bloom. “This host was definitely infested with the web…But I don’t think he was nearlyasinfected as the other two! He has had years to sprout, and managed only this?”

I studied the dead body, thinking. “They didn’t do it right, then?”

“Perhaps. You claim this was their first murder—so whoever killed him might have bungled it. My instinct says they struck before the fungus was fully matured. Didn’t have the practice yet, in a way. Is that useful to you, Kol?”

“It’s as you said, sir,” I murmured, studying the tiny stalk carefully. “Much can be read in the shiftings of small things.”

“We shall place these three into containment and have them taken back for full autopsy. However, we must strip them first and dispose of their clothing for a cursory examination. Can’t let anything hidden come in, you see. Would you like to look them over?”

Using a set of shears, the Orbiis removed the clothing of the dead where they lay in their tombs. Unlike most Apoths I’d worked with, the officers didn’t seem at all accustomed to such work and needed much help with the bodies—especially with Lyimo Armenta, who had been a broad, strapping young thing. I noted Tauri murmuring, “A waste!” as we attempted to turn over his body.

Though I found nothing unusual about Lyimo’s hands, feet, or face—save the fungus sprouting from behind his ear, of course—as we rolled him over, I cast a glance across his back and paused.

There, just beside his shoulder blade: a little bruise, and just beside that, a tiny perforation.

I leaned close. The bruise was about a half span wide, consistent with being struck by something small and rounded. The perforation beside it was a slit about a half span long. I probed it with my finger and confirmed that it was quite shallow: not a stab as much as a rough jab with something somewhat dull.

“This is…unusual,” I said softly.

“Is it?” said Tauri. “The fellow rode and drove cattle often. His shins and forearms are covered in tiny scars and such. A rough life writes itself upon the body—or so I’m told…”

It was as I gazed at the wound—this tiny, round bruise, and tiny, shallow cut—that I feltit.

My memories moved within me, trembling like a duckling in its egg, and whispered:Seen this before.

Suddenly the ring finger of my right hand began to ache. I shook my hand out, then took a breath and parsed my memories—but I could not find what they had meant by that. I was certain I had seen no such thing in this investigation. In fact, all the wounds I’d seen had been terribly gruesome. I found the situation quite frustrating: how could I remember without remembering?

“Shall we move on?” asked Tauri.

I muttered agreement and followed him to the next grave.

—

We studied bothGevma’s and Sagma’s bodies, and though Gevma’s old wound to the back of his head was quite unsettling, I found nothing else of interest about them. The Orbiis then packed up the bodies in what Tauri had called “containment”—aset of complex, algaeoil bladders that puckered like a sphincter when touched with the proper oils—and we made ready to depart.

I relayed the news to Fotia and Trikao at the gates, though I kept my report short: the three were infected, as feared, and would be removed for further autopsy.

“What will we tell your sister?” Fotia asked Trikao.

Trikao’s mouth worked for a moment, unable to give voice to his thoughts. “I…I feel we can’t tell her this. Not yet, not until we know who the killer is! She’s convinced it’s the work of the ancients, and she’s so frail of health that I…I worry the shock could kill her.”

I shot Fotia a look, and after comforting Trikao for a moment longer she followed me back to the Orbiis cart. “Yes?” she said softly. “What is it?”