“Ah.” Varo sat back in his chair. “Who else is on the team?”
“It will just be the three of us,” Maya said.
“That’s all right, then. You two can take care of yourselves.” He gave a resigned sigh. “I’d hate to have some other poor bastard join up and get killed.”
“Nobody got killed last time,” Beq said, flipping a page. “Maybe you’ve broken your streak of bad luck.”
“Never say that,” Varo moaned. “It’s bad luck.”
Maya laughed and turned to Beq. “So do those drawings tell you anything?”
“Not… much.” Beq looked up at last, touching the side of her spectacles. Lenses clicked and flipped out of the way. “There’s some pieces that look familiar, but I don’t know enough to say what they might be doing. There’s something odd going on, but without the actual thing to look at…”
“I suppose that’s why we’re going to this Archive.” Maya quickly summarized their objective for Varo, while Beq became increasingly excited.
“I can’t believe the Council has a source like this and doesn’t tell anyone,” Beq said. “Can you imagine what we could ask it? We could finally find out what the point of an Ackman junction is, or how to activate the third sequence of the—”
“I’m a little more interested in the packs of plaguespawn,” Varo said. “Prodominus was certain of that?”
“He was,” Maya said. “But you’ll like this part. He’s given us full access to the stacks here to prepare, including the restricted sections.” She produced Prodominus’ letter with a flourish. “We’ve got the run of the place.”
“Well, that’s something.” Varo looked at the Kyriliarch’s illegible signature. “He must really trust you.”
“I’m not sure why, but he seems to,” Maya said. “If you’re coming, Varo, we’d better get started.”
The restricted section was at the back of the stacks, walled off from the rest by a heavy barred grating. One of the archivists read the letter from Prodominus, lips pressed together in disapproval, and went to get a ring of keys. The grate swung open with a groan, and the archivist glared at the three of them like they were children being given the run of the sweet shop.
“Don’t remove anything,” she said. “Call for a copyist if you need to. Don’t try to return anything to the shelves, you’ll only lose it, just stack it on the table when you’re finished. And please be careful with the materials. Some of these books are very fragile.” Her gaze fixed on Maya. “And if you even think of using any fire—”
“I understand,” Maya said, spreading her hands. “We’ll be careful.”
“Hmph.”
The archivist stalked off, and Maya and Beq exchanged looks. Varo was already moving ahead, a glowing sunstone in hand. The ceiling was low, and heavy metal shelves crowded in on all sides, thick with dust. There were books, of course, but also curled scrolls in ivory cases and pages loosely bound with twine.
“What is all this stuff?” Maya brushed the gray off of one spine and read, “Notes on the Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Senate? Why would the Council care if people read that?”
“Probably nobody remembers,” Varo said, holding up the sunstone as he peered at the books. “Stuff gets shoved in here because some Kyriliarch thinks it ought to, and no one ever goes back and looks at it again.”
“My master in the arcanists was always angry about it,” Beq said, her voice full of quiet reverence. “He said that we end up redoing work that had been done a hundred years ago because the Council never bothered to let anyone read it.”
“This goes on forever,” Maya said. “What are we looking for, exactly?”
“The reports from the previous expeditions, to begin with,” Varo said. “And anything about the region. I’m hoping there’s at least a decent map.”
“Should be over this way,” Beq said, pointing around a corner.
Maya, who had not spent any time with the intricacies of the Forge’s filing system, quickly found herself reduced to the role of passive observer. There was a small table, and Varo and Beq quickly filled it with a stack of loose-bound reports, as well as some proper books that Varo said might come in handy. They set to reading, Varo scribbling notes on a fresh sheet of paper.
“This sounds like one of yours,” Beq read aloud. “‘At the end of a day’s travel, Scout-Trainee Festig complained of pain in his left foot. After removing his boot, we discovered a scorpion had taken up residence and had stung him repeatedly. His foot commenced to swell to three times its normal size, and on observing the putrefaction moving up his limb Centarch Ghisa Ragewell was forced to remove it.’”
“Amateur.” Varo sniffed. “Checking your boots for scorpions is the first thing they teach you as a scout. Standards clearly weren’t as high in those days.” He paused. “Mind you, it didn’t help one of my friends. The plaguing thing was hiding in the privy, and it stung him right in the—”
Beq snorted laughter.
“You want to talk about swelling,” Varo muttered. “Course, he wasn’t complaining.”
After a few attempts to read something herself, Maya decided she was better off leaving them to it. She started walking back and forth along the shelves, occasionally reaching out to rub the dust away from an obscured title, not really expecting to find anything.
What’s wrong with me? She felt restless, unsettled. The prospect of being in the field with her friends ought to have been attractive. And she was looking forward to it, especially the chance to spend some time alone with Beq. Varo, at least, can be relied on to butt out when I need him to.
But there was more. Prodominus said this might have something to do with what happened to Jaedia and Nicomidi. He’d refused to explain any further, but he clearly knew more than he was telling. Why? Why bring me into this and not tell me everything?
There’s still too much I don’t understand. The black spider, Nicomidi’s madness, the strange plaguespawn and constructs that had torn each other to pieces in front of the ghoul ruins. And Gyre. He’d fought her once, back at Raskos Rottentooth’s warehouse, and his alchemical tricks had been no match for deiat. But the second time, on the docks beside that mammoth thing, he’d been like a different person entirely.
And he has a silver eye. There were rumors of dhakim who could replace lost limbs, but she’d never heard of someone getting an eye. So is he working with the black spider, or against it? How many sides are there?
She hadn’t heard anything from him since they’d parted. Not a surprise, of course. But somehow she’d half expected he’d come in from the cold once he thought things over. He stopped that ghoul weapon. He’s not a bad person, I know it.
Her hand paused on the shelf, midway through wiping away a layer of grime. The title of the book, picked out in flaking silver leaf, was A Basic Dictionary of Formal High Chosen.
For their everyday language, Maya knew, the Chosen had relied on the same tongue that humans now spoke throughout their former empire. But they’d had another tongue, old even by Elder standards, that they’d used for sacred or ritual occasions, now called High Chosen. Who put a dictionary in the restricted section? Maya went to move on, then paused. Maybe…