The room held only a couple of chairs, with the polished, extruded look of most ghoul furniture. One of them was occupied, so Gyre went to the other, giving a polite bow before he sat down.
The ghoul in the other chair acknowledged him with a bare nod. Like all her kind, she was humanoid but decidedly inhuman in appearance: taller than Gyre, slim enough to look rangy by human standards, and covered all over in dense brown-and-white fur. Her eyes were enormous, filling half her face with huge pupils and narrow whites, and she had long, expressive ears that twitched as she spoke. She wore no clothing, apart from a small metal coil threaded through the base of one ear. Gyre couldn’t say if it was decorative or arcana. When she smiled at him, her teeth were white and finely pointed.
“My name,” she said, with the careful diction of someone speaking a language they’d studied but not used much, “is Tyraves. I am the new Minister of the Exterior.”
“Gyre,” said Gyre. “But you knew that. Thank you for letting me back into the city.”
“It was judged that you may have important information,” Tyraves said. “If you are forthcoming with it, this will be easier for you.”
“I’m happy to tell you anything I can,” Gyre said. “But I would like to speak to Elariel.”
“Elariel”—Tyraves pronounced the name with distaste—“is currently standing trial for her part in the crimes of my… predecessor, Naumoriel.” Her sharp-toothed smile broadened. Gyre didn’t sense much humor in it, and her ears were flattened back against her skull. “Tell me of your association with them. Start from the beginning.”
“That may take some time.”
Tyraves’ tongue darted across her pointed teeth. “Neither of us is going anywhere.”
Fair enough. He’d expected something like this, although now that he was faced with the reality of Tyraves’ unsympathetic features, the plan he’d come up with on the road back from Leviathan’s Womb was starting to feel distinctly shaky. A little late to back out now, though.
He laid out the story for her with only a few careful edits, from when Kit had recruited him to the final trip to Leviathan’s Womb. How he’d fought off the Order’s attempt to stop them, defeating his sister, Maya, and another centarch—
“Two centarchs.” Tyraves’ ears twitched. “You fought off two centarchs on your own?”
“Only thanks to Naumoriel’s augmentations, of course.”
“Hmm.” Tyraves leaned forward in her chair and reached out with one hand, laying her thin fingers on Gyre’s arm. His flesh rose in goose bumps as something raced through him, the soft breath of dhaka. The ghoul’s eyes widened a little. “I see.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No.” She sat back, ears flattening again. “What Naumoriel did to you was… extensive. I doubt anything like it has been attempted since the war. I am surprised, frankly, that you survived.”
Gyre shivered. “It certainly wasn’t… pleasant.”
“I imagine not.” She steepled her hands. “So you repelled the Order attack while Naumoriel was aboard the Leviathan, installing the Analytica. Then what?”
“Then…” Gyre hesitated. This is the tricky part. “I’m not sure, exactly. Something went wrong. There was an explosion, and the Leviathan fell against the dock. By the time I got aboard, Naumoriel was dying.”
In reality, the explosion had been Gyre’s own doing, as had Naumoriel’s death. Seeing exactly what the old ghoul had planned to unleash against the Republic, and with his sister’s desperate plea ringing in his ears, Gyre had disabled the Leviathan. Ever since, he’d spent his nights wondering whether he’d made the right choice.
But Tyraves doesn’t need to know that.
“Old fool,” she said, and muttered something scathing in her own language. “We are saved the trouble of a trial for him, at any rate.” She leaned forward again, her ears standing straight. “But as far as you are aware, the Order agents never came in contact with Naumoriel?”
“Definitely not,” Gyre said. “We fought on the dock, and he was already on board.”
She pursed her lips. “Still better if you had killed them. Or better yet if the place had collapsed and killed you all. But perhaps disaster has been avoided.”
“I don’t think there’s any risk to Refuge,” Gyre said. “For all the Order knows, we were just scavengers who dug up a big find.”
“That is not your determination to make,” Tyraves snapped. “The Geraia has entrusted me with the responsibility of keeping our city safe. What steps that entails is my decision.” She sat back, hands folded. “But there remains the question of what to do with you, now that you’ve conveniently brought yourself back here.”
“I want to talk to Elariel. Please.”
“She is in no position to help you.”
“Even so.” She’s the only ally in this place I’m likely to have.
“Hmm.” Tyraves tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair, thoughtfully, as if weighing her curiosity against the inconvenience of his request. “Perhaps. Wait here.”
The wait turned out to be at least an hour, while Gyre’s certainty that he’d made a disastrously wrong choice steadily increased.
I didn’t have to come back here. No doubt the ghouls would have tried to track him down, but the augmentations combined with the skills from his career as a thief and revolutionary would have made it easy to hide. Get away from Deepfire, away from the mountains. There were more than enough cesspools in the Splinter Kingdoms for a mercenary to disappear into.
But that would have meant giving up. Gyre had come to the mountains in search of the lost city of the ghouls, hoping that it would give him the power to destroy the Order that had stolen his sister and taken his eye. What he’d found went far beyond his wildest hopes, and to turn away from it now…
Enough. He clenched his fists. I’ve already thrown the dice. Now it’s just a matter of seeing the roll.
Kit waited on the chair while he paced back and forth. She didn’t speak—he had no doubt the ghouls could listen, if they cared to—but the little spider-construct was surprisingly reassuring. I’m not alone. Not completely. Tyraves hadn’t raised an eyebrow, either. Constructs were such a part of the fabric of ghoul life that they were practically invisible, and Kit’s body wasn’t big enough to be dangerous.
Eventually, the door slid open. The soldier-constructs had been joined by a transporter—a chair on construct legs, essentially. Gyre climbed aboard, and the thing took off at a gallop, speeding with uncanny grace through twisting corridors and up endlessly spiraling ramps. Gyre got brief glimpses of the city through passing windows and had the impression that they were ascending, winding their way up toward the top of the massive cavern. The tunnels grew more elaborately adorned, featureless smoothness giving way to intricate carvings and soft, mossy carpets. There were even other ghouls about, walking in small groups surrounded by guardian constructs or carried in chairs like his own.
When the transporter came to a halt, Gyre found himself in front of a new set of doors, carved with a stylized frieze depicting the city. More soldier-constructs guarded them, massive things twice the size of the rest. Tyraves was waiting for him, and at her nod he gingerly slipped down from the chair.