Chapter Thirty Nine

The dogs continued their laughter, and the stars wheeled above in the clear night sky - a sky sliced in half by the mountains. On one side, swirling nebulae and twinkling lights, uninterrupted by clouds. On the other, rough-hewn shadows, a vague darkness which simply existed, perhaps a warning, perhaps a headstone, perhaps simply a witness. The mountains watched the three as they walked quietly into the forest, two together, one following. Aristocratic trees all around, and earth which crackled with hints of permafrost. The dogs were keeping their distance, afraid of contaminating themselves. But they laughed, oh, how they laughed - high-pitched throaty chuckles that echoed through the trees. A second set of constellations - the gleaming eyes of the laughing-dogs that roamed the woods and stained the frost with dripping saliva. Carza had her hands shoved in her pockets, one wrapped around the grip of her gun, the other simply clutching itself. Needed some point of reference to operate around. Lirana stumbled after her - not because she was weak, but because she was far too strong. She had to forcibly restrain herself from loping into the distance with easy strides, leaving Carza far behind. And that restraint prompted more than a few half-stumbles and awkward hesitations.

Aristocratic trees on all sides. Dark, high, and silent - nothing rustled in their branches. Nothing came close - no animals, nothing. Carza thought that she could feel something in the air, an invisible pressure. The other times she'd been around a mutant, she'd been... well, terrified. Or running away. Often both. But Lirana was being peaceful, civilised, accepting... everything that made Carza feel a little calmer, and it let her appreciate that damn pressure in all its glory. It was a kind of evolutionary switch, some hidden instinct, some hidden sense. Smell, taste, touch, sight, hearing... and contamination. No other way of describing it, it was like having some invisible field surrounding her, pressing inwards, lightly brushing the back of her neck. Her every instinct telling her to leave, that this wasn't a foe that could be fought, only run from. Ironic, in a sense (and if she was feeling pretentious). Contamination turned you into an animal either by infecting you with itself, or infecting you with fear. But under no circumstances did it leave you the way it found you. Carza, though, was well-acquainted with being reduced to animal instincts. It was what had kept her alive thus far, helped her climb out of the streets, move into a life she did, truly, love.

Lirana wheezed behind her mask, coughing slightly. Too much mucus. Common cold - the contamination thought it was part of her, and thus was allowing it to spread. It wouldn't kill her. Maybe she'd become one of the anaemic, shuffling disease vectors which were usually burned on sight - living dispensaries of plague, their entire biology adjusting to spread it further. Or maybe she'd just find herself changing, bit by bit. Contamination assuming that she was meant to be producing too much mucus, she was meant to be coughing too often, she was meant to have bloodshot eyes and perpetual muscle ache. Accepting the symptoms as the new mode of life for her. Lirana grunted irritably, after yet another lung-straining wheeze.

"...you know, I almost hoped I'd get consumption if I was going to die of a disease."

Carza blinked, and wanted to remain silent, but... no, none of this was about her.

"Why's that?"

"Consumption's the poets disease, isn't it."

Another owlish blink.

"...is it?"

"What, do they not have that where you are?"

"We just think of it as 'that thing which kills you'. I'm not sure how else you could think of it."

Lirana snorted in amusement.

"That just tells me that your city is so lovely you don't have many cases. Mahar Jovan does, and trust me, it's still nasty, but it's also... well, think about it. I lose all my weight, which, honestly, would be quite nice."

"Uh-huh."

"Then, I get all pale, but my cheeks are as rosy as can be, which, again, very appealing. Yes, there's the coughs, but I've heard that if you're lucky it makes you seem all wan and waifish and weak, which is, again, not too bad."

"It still sounds awful to me."

"Well..."

Lirana sniffed again.

"It doesn't coat me in bloody snot, that's for sure. Give me something that makes me... wait, can I be vulgar?"

Carza struggled to answer.

"...it's your right. Yes."

"Fantastic. I want to die fuckable, you know? And being covered in mucus is not fuckable, at least, not by the people I want to f-"

"I understand."

Dying provided so many excuses for vulgarity, Lirana could do whatever she wanted and Carza would never criticise her, on account of... getting her killed. A lump formed in her throat when she thought about that. About the fact that she'd dragged a person down into the forest, gotten her mutated, made her a twice-over murderer, and then... then walked her out in a forest to meet her fate, and the best gift she could give was not criticising her vulgarity. Idly, she thought that when she died, she was going to eat, drink, and smoke as much as she wanted, and she was going to waste every last salary packet on indulging her every debauched desire. If Lirana could swear, then Carza could indulge.

"...so..."

Lirana trailed off for a moment, and took a deep breath.

"Is this the part where you shoot me in the head and burn my body?"

Carza froze.

"Or is there something else you wanted to do?"

Carza hesitated for a moment... and finally mustered the willpower to reply.

"I wanted... wanted to talk to you."

Lirana glanced over, eyes barely visible behind fogged-up goggles.

"About what?"

"About... you, I suppose. I wanted to know you."

"...why?"

"Well, I... is there a way you'd prefer to go?"

"In bed, surrounded by-"

"With the resources we have available. Are there any rites you'd like to have performed? Any last errands you want us to do? We can deliver messages, possessions... best as we're able to, at least. Anthan's dealt with... this sort of situation before, he said that the solutions were generally being left behind to make your own peace, but if you want something else to happen..."

"...did he shoot his own comrades?"

"I think he has. I don't think he enjoyed doing it."

"Well, good. Glad he has experience with the act. Not sure if I'd have the willpower to do it myself."

Carza paused. A memory, itching at the edge of her mind.

"And any rites? Errands?"

Lirana sighed, leant against a tree, stared up at the stars for a moment.

"Can I chew some coca?"

"...sure. Of course."

"You really hate the stuff, don't you?"

"No, I love it. That's the problem."

"Want some?"

"...no, no, have it yourself."

"Great."

She stuffed a few of the dried leaves up under her mask, a few droplets of squirming mucus emerging at the edges. Overproduction was really kicking in, no idea how long she'd be recognisable as a human - if contamination was reaching the state of... what was the term? Right, if it was reaching the point of 'disparate integration', then it had bypassed all the body's natural defences. No more natural resistance, no more desperate attempts to use mutation to fight mutation... the end had started, and the contamination would rage through her, until it began to run dry. By which point it'd have planted the urge to find more. To bloat like a tick with the flesh of other mutants, to drink from exposed springs... to dive into the underground rivers and swim, becoming something utterly unfathomable. The sound of chewing was soft, leaving no echo, providing a kind of constant, pulsing ambience to everything. Her teeth sounded a little sharper, now. Quite a bit sharper, in fact. All the better for hunting.

"Rites... you're alright there. Mahar Jovan has rites, but I don't hold by them, and your lot isn't qualified to perform them."

She patted her pocket.

"But I have my ma's old lawbook, so that'll be good enough for me. 'Virtuous is the one who ponders the law unto their dying breath, recall the lessons of Judge Halima who spoke judgements even with her final whispers.'"

"...oh. I... see."

"Ma was a Judge of the Golden Door. Odd lady. Liked her, of course, and she liked me, but she wasn't much for loving. Too busy with her work, too busy with her own life. Sometimes I thought she just loved the sound of her own voice... you never want to let Judges retire, so it's probably a good thing she died from an infection a long while ago. Judges, when they retire... they have all the instincts, all the need, all the purpose, but they've lost any outlets. Judges judge criminals, and when they're done, they become... charitable. Meaning the entire world's become a bunch of criminals accused of the crime of greed and miserliness, and the only absolution can be found through donating to her funds. My cousin had to deal with that, my aunt lived longer than my mother, both were Judges, and... well, my cousin, she was furious about it. My aunt would keep insisting that she spend her pocket money on charitable causes, then she'd boast about it to their neighbours. Cousin developed the kind of murderous rage you usually expect from hardened criminals, honestly. Poor lass."

She was rambling. Silence was an invading army ready to pillage, reave, and leave behind nothing but strained tension and dread. And the only way of resisting was with noise and words. Ideally as much and as many as humanly possible. Humanly. Mutantly. She was mutating. She wasn't really human any more. She was going to lose her mind soon enough. The contamination didn't even recognise her biology as a singular unit at this point, the barriers were degrading, maybe she'd start fusing with her weaponry and clothes soon... she'd heard rumours about that, mechanical mutation, thought it was an urban legend, and... shut up shut up shut up. Just stop thinking. Lirana was rambling - no, talking - about her life, and the very least Carza could do was listen and nod and hum and do it all at the appropriate junctures.

"Uh. Alright. I understand. And will..."

She trailed off. An idea had struck her. Rather a good one, too. The Court of Ivory had a few rites of commemoration and mourning. Obviously the anointing of the golden needle was... probably improper here. They weren't meant for non-believers, and she doubted Lirana would appreciate the idea. But there was one rite extended to anyone who was sufficiently close to a scholar. No membership necessary. Extending the rite to those beyond the Court was considered an honour - and not a remarkable one, it was done fairly frequently to people deemed important enough.

"...you know, there's a... rite that my Court performs for outsiders, sometimes."

"Hm? You're not going to, I don't know, bury me in a tomb made of books or something?"

Carza blinked.

"No, that would be very wasteful. And I don't have enough books. And... anyway. The Rite of Remembrance involves me... well, taking down the details of your life. When I have a chance, I can properly compile these notes, translate them to an appropriate verse form, inscribe it all on high-quality paper... then I add it to our commemorative libraries."

Lirana stared, wheezing a little.

"...you're serious?"

"I am. I'd be happy to take down the details of your life. If you'd like. Then we can... move on to other things. But I thought-"

"Hell, I'm interested. No-one asks me about my life story. Are you sure you want to hear it?"

Carza was already brushing the dust from her typewriter, and adjusting the ink ribbon to precisely the right level of tightness. She busied herself with the rituals of preparation - these weren't actual rituals, she didn't even need to use sacred oils or needles or magical words. She just liked to make her little routines feel more important. Wipe down the keys, tighten the ink ribbon, set the margins, load the paper... she sat down and leant against a tree. The typewriter came with a small wooden base which served as the bottom for the box it was carried in... and also a convenient pseudo-desk for situations like this. She'd been adamant about that - one of the few bits of preparation she'd done for this expedition that seemed to be worth a damn. Lirana hesitated... and sat down cross-legged, wheezing a little, blinking behind her thick lenses. The ground was cold, hard, and uncomfortable... and neither really minded. Somewhere in the distance, Carza knew Anthan was probably lurking, ready to take action if necessary. But... damn it, this was the right thing to do. Lirana had helped her out, saved her life... Lirana had come here because of Carza, and Carza was going to do her the honour she deserved for not killing Carza out of vengeful fury.

"I'll write down whatever you like. If there's anything you don't want included-"

"No, no, I'm just thinking. Not sure what would be... uh, appropriate."

"It's really up to you."

"...hell, why not. Warts and all. Do I have to divide my thoughts into chapters?"

"Only if you'd like to."

"...fine, fine, I'll do this free-form. Winging it. Alright, so... uh, yes, my mother was a judge of the Golden Door, my father was a soldier, both are dead as doornails at this point. No siblings, really. Very close to my cousin though, she's pretty great. Lived in Mahar Jovan my whole life, well, except for a year in one of the colonia. Dad was stationed out there, Mum was dead at that point, so... well, no choice but to go out with him. Nice time. It was a late-stage colonia, though. The foundation stone had worn down a bit, contamination was becoming more frequent... dad was really just keeping an eye on the decline, making sure nothing awful happened. Nothing did, incidentally. Colonia's gone now, by the way. Evacuated, settlers taken back to the city, sent out when prospectors found some new patch of land which had replenished its foundation stone deposits. Well, the stone had leached back up into the soil with no-one to disrupt it, so..."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Carza tilted her head to one side, typing all the while.

"Like crop rotation?"

"Pretty much. Coloniae are just crop rotation but for, like, humans. You plant us, and we grow money. So, you know, money doesn't grow on trees, but it does grow on humans. I think. I suppose. Can you make that sound funnier?"

"...I'll give it a go."

"You said this is going to be in verse form?"

"A form of verse, yes."

"Limericks?"

"...not quite?"

"I know a lot of naughty limericks. Try and include a couple."

"...I'm not sure if-"

Lirana coughed. It started out as a joke, a wheezing, bursting cough that she exaggerated beyond the realms of plausibility... and then it devolved into gunshot-sharp hacks which shook her chest, her back, made her almost bend over double. Carza wanted to lean forwards to pat her on the back, but... well, mutant. As much as she wanted to, the pressure in the air endured, the sense of being weighed down on by an evolutionary imperative to keep away. And sadly, no amount of concern could really overcome that. It took almost a whole minute for her to stop, and Lirana's voice was ragged and coarse afterwards.

"...you'd better include some rude limericks in there. If you don't, I'm haunting you."

"...haunt?"

"Like a ghost."

"...oh. We... don't really have those in ALD IOM. Ghosts, I mean. I've read about them in other cultures, but..."

"Well, ghosts don't care if you believe in them or not, and nor will I. I'll turn your milk sour, snip the buttons from your shirts, and hide every other sock in places that will leave you confused for years to come."

"I... see. I'll try to put some limericks in."

"Good. Now... uh, so, yes, dad was a soldier, mum was a judge..."

She trailed off. Carza prodded her.

"Why did you decide to leave home? You mentioned wanting to make enough money to retire, and-"

"Oh. That. Yes. It's still true, by the way. I wanted to make a lot of money. Enough to retire to a home in the country with a whole stable of manservants. Menservants. Whatever."

"Why?"

Carza asked her question with mild interest. Just... well, it felt wrong to make her seem so mercenary in her own biography. Lirana hummed.

"...good question. I suppose... you know what, to hell with it, I'm dying, might as well be honest. I think... if I really think about it, I'd say that I'm just... alright, think about it this way. My dad was a soldier. He served for his entire life doing a job he genuinely enjoyed. And he died poor, because the government couldn't afford to give him the pension they promised - not enough to cover the bills from the chemist. Man had needs, and the pension wasn't covering them. My mum was the same. Loved her job, loved her duty, adored giving herself unto the law. Then she died, and... well, she died leaving behind almost nothing. She had robes, prestige, value, and she was poor as dirt. Prestige doesn't give you anything once you're gone, prestige can't just be passed down and used to pay the bills. And I... well, even with my mum being poor, my dad was very poor when she died. They both needed to work to really stay afloat."

She paused, coughing slightly. Rocking back and forth almost imperceptibly.

"And I wasn't alone when they died. I have me a... well, a lad I liked. A lot, really. Modan. Loved that idiot... I really did, honestly. Thought I could marry him. But one day, we were in bed together, I was smoking, he was dozing, we'd just... well, you can imagine. And I looked up at the ceiling, and I thought... Modan was a bricklayer for this construction company, I was finding a bit of work as a typist, but here's the thing - my mum and my dad had bad arthritis in their later years. And once that started, I'd be slower at typing. Doubted I could work my way up to being a secretary, honestly. Not smart enough for that, and... well, there's unpleasant fates, and then there's being a useless arthritic mother in a crumbling hovel, too weak and idiotic to get any work any normal way... physical labour's fine, but it takes one bad fall to put an end to all of it. And I did a lot of manual labour, had to, really. Point was, I just felt... well, if I was injured, Modan would be forced to take care of me, if he was injured, I'd have to take care of him, and the stress would likely injure the person supporting the other, and... then you add children to the mix..."

She shrugged helplessly.

"How can you justify having children when you can already picture resenting them as they swallow up your money and make you and your husband go hungry to provide for them? How can you justify bringing them into the world, and not having the responsibility to give them a nice, fat life where they don't have to worry about a damn thing?"

Lirana sighed.

"...so I left. I wanted money, and I wanted a lot. Left when I was seventeen, and now... twenty-five. Eight years. Modan and I didn't... well, it didn't work out, in the end. Too much time away from home, too much time apart... just eroded things. He never forgave it, and I didn't really think about what he wanted, just... anyway. Better that he moved on. I worked a lot of jobs. Hauling stuff like a pack mule, sure. Spent time as a guard to a criminal once. Made some good money there. Spent four months manning a lighthouse - just a big bright safehouse in the middle of the wilderness, really. Traders loved the place, wanderers loved it, mutants would steer clear... good spot. Barmaid for a bit... I figured, a lady could make some good money if she kept moving, kept looking for a good job, settling down when she found something she liked. Make enough to buy a patch of land and settle. Funny, huh? I wanted to have children, but I also wanted to be... ready for it, I suppose. And in the end..."

Another shrug.

"I just ran out of time, I guess. Funny, isn't it?"

Carza smiled slightly.

"If you say so."

She found it incredibly sad, really. And... depressingly relatable. Except for the children element, that had long-since stopped being even a topic of mild interest, given the whole... celibacy thing. She'd become resigned to that fact, though. One could get used to loneliness, it was just a matter of quiet adjustments to one's lifestyle, one's mode of thinking... bit by bit, loneliness could become a warm, comforting blanket. And Lirana had clearly swaddled herself in it. They talked for a long time, the two of them. Carza's tapping filled the air, each piece of paper promptly folded up and placed into a sturdy brown envelope she was already intending to use to protect her notes. Waterproofed, protected from the damp, sealed to the point that nothing could get in once the flaps came down. Expensive as all hell, of course. But a very necessary purchase. Once Lirana had a prompt, she found it easier to talk. And boy, did she talk. Carza didn't begrudge her that. She listened quietly and attentively, noting down everything she heard, sometimes properly, sometimes in shorthand, occasionally showing her notes to Lirana to make sure she'd gotten a detail right. Lirana's life was flashing before her eyes, and Carza was recording the entire process.

It was calming. For both of them.

"...my mum, she was a judge, and that meant... well, are you familiar with the Golden Door?"

"Not entirely."

"Well, point is, they have these... ceremonial sweets, I suppose. Lovely things, white and red and blue and all swirled. Hard on the outside, sticky on the inside. It's a ritual to meet with other judges before a trial, to chew some sweets together, compliment the taste... always say the same things, of course. Same compliments, same platitudes. It's more a way of just... learning to like each other. Mum said that liking people was a habit, and if you worked hard you could cultivate it. One time, I had a birthday and mum gave me a small gift - just a wooden duck with wheels, so you could roll it along. Nice thing, but... well, I wanted a knife. A big knife. Worrying, for a kid, but in my defence, all the cool kids had knives. And I was an ungrateful little so-and-so. So my mum took me aside, sat me down in our pokey kitchen, and coached me on how to show gratitude. How to be polite. So, here's the duck - compliment it, go over the good qualities, remember your connection to the giver. Now, here's a loaf of stale bread. Do the same. That one was pretty hard, honestly. But... it took a few minutes, but I had a formula down. And then I was allowed to pretend to receive a knife, which I could be excessively enthusiastic about. Little treat, that. Pretending to get a knife. And... it worked, I suppose. Optimism, politeness... it's a habit. My mum had it, she could be optimistic about anything, but she wasn't very cheerful. It was just a habit for her. My dad was the same, except when he was in his cups. Then he could be grim. I... fell out of the habit, I suppose."

She paused.

"One time, I ate all my mother's ceremonial sweets. Hell, she slapped me when she found out. I was a greedy little creature, barely useful at the time. Just ate and ate and ate. Had a red mark on my face for days, mum kept crying when she saw it, would keep hugging me and apologising. Said that I'd made a mistake, but I didn't deserve to get slapped. That was the sort of person she was - she knew the law, she knew the right habits, she knew everything she was meant to do... but she could be angry, bitter, spiteful. Lovely colleague. Nice mother. But it was pretty obvious that she had... well, she'd worked to be that way, and if she relaxed for too long she'd slip into her weaker tendencies."

Lirana laughed slightly. Sadly.

"You never stop missing them. Mothers, I mean. There's always a hole left behind, never feels like there's anything that can fill it. Never know how you can get by without them, feels like a safety net was just... ripped away, and now every stumble is that bit worse, that bit harsher. One slip, and you'll fall off into the dark with no-one to notice. So you collect more points. More little anchors to hold yourselves up, you rebuild the safety net... but a mum was there first. You didn't build that net, it was there from the day you were born. Feels deeper, somehow. It's there, you can't build it up again. And when you try, you see the places where it's weaker. And if a safety net only works some of the time... what good is it?"

Carza shivered. Not her place to intrude here, but... she couldn't quite relate. She missed her mother, obviously. Loved her. But found it hard to like her. Carza's mother had chosen to live outside the Courts, and in the process had made herself poor and hungry and she'd died younger than she was meant to. Carza had been on the streets because of her, and while it'd worked out correctly, there was a distinct feeling that Carza's mother had been... not quite selfish, but she'd had a life as a person, and a life as a mother, and ne'er the two intersected. And when they did, it was more like trains colliding than tracks merging. But... yes, she'd been a safety net. A warm room, a place to sleep, a place where safety could be found. Where the doors could be bolted and once they were, the world beyond ceased. Her mother hadn't been much of a mother, to be honest. Nice enough, but... not quite what Carza had needed. The Court of Ivory had served that purpose. Mother and father both - given that her mother was dead, and her father was disinterested in doing his job. Melqua had been an older sister, and tradition had been both parents. The same idea, though. A net which was there before she was born, and would be around after she died. Wide, thick, and strong. Part of why she was so... fond of Hull. Not just because he was a friend - he was, and a damn good one - but because he was a part of that tradition.

A fragment of the net.

She wished he was here. But... no, no, she'd organised this, and she'd spoken to Lirana more. Dying with an audience was like any other performance, and that meant it was nerve-wracking. Dying alone was just miserable. Better to die with someone one was comfortable with. Comfortable enough to just... talk.

She hoped Lirana felt that way. Based on how she rambled, she did.

Hopefully.

They talked for hours. Deep into the night. Page after page of cheap paper filled up, and stuffed into an increasingly strained brown envelope. Carza blushed when she heard about Lirana's string of boyfriends and lovers, how she'd been introduced to coca in a dusty bar in Fidelizh by a man who acted like a god of debauchery. The detached feeling of stumbling into a station with money in her pocket and no idea where she wanted to, no idea but that she needed to get somewhere else. Working as a woodcutter in the great forests around Apo, where she lived in a shanty shack and dined on huge slabs of venison every night. 'Arms were thick when I left, arse was thicker'. Slimming down during her time manning an inland lighthouse, necessary for guiding the great caravans and various travellers in the places where the roads were poorly maintained and rarely trod. All manner of careers, some of them good, some of them... some she wasn't so proud of. She grumbled when she mentioned staying in a colonia of New Trobalis, entered by the river. Where she'd lived in a rambling little room over an inn, and every night she beat the tar out of people with a cudgel. Not robbing, just... debt collecting. Then someone pulled a gun on her, and she wound up sweating off any remaining pounds from the woodcutting job as she almost died of fevered infection. Bloody wound in her shoulder that took weeks to heal. Surviving with no money in her pocket.

No money at all. Said she'd show Carza the scar, but... well, she wasn't sure how much of it was left. Told stories about the scarred ones, though. The mutants who had too much scar tissue... contamination thought it was the way flesh was meant to be, so it expanded it. Let it grew like a fungus across the skin, spreading, consuming... until they became beautiful things of silver-grey matter, cobwebs in the shape of people, sometimes blind, sometimes senseless, and always impeccably reinforced.

"I should be so lucky."

She paused.

"Thank you for recording this."

"Least I can do."

"I don't blame you, you know."

Carza looked up.

"...I-"

"I know you blame yourself. Don't. I lived a life, had a good go at it. I leave behind no-one dependent on me, no-one at all. If you feel like being unreasonably decent, give my salary to my cousin - if you can wire her anything. Name's Tonrana Magg."

Carza tilted her head to one side.

"Is your last name-"

"Magg, yes. Not sure of her address, haven't talked in a good few years... poke around, you'll find her. No rush, of course. She's fine, no need for the money. But... if you've budgeted for my salary, give her what I'm owed."

"I promise. If I live, I'll pay her."

"Don't die over it. But... thanks. Again."

"Anything else?"

"Nothing. No letters, no farewells. Parents are dead, aunt and uncle are dead, cousin's all I have left. No fiance, no husband, no children... my friends are far, far away, and more... friendly acquaintances than anything else. Too focused on just getting what I was owed, making the money I needed to prosper."

She paused.

"Avoid that. Make yourself some good friends. Hold on tight to them, even if it bruises. Better than dying alone."

"I'm here."

"And that's appreciated."

She moved her hands to her mask, lifting it for a second. A long sniff emerged from the vacuous dark of her face, shadowed still by the cloth and leather.

"...gods... I can smell you."

Carza froze.

"I really can. I can smell you perfectly. Contamination's making me keen. I can smell the sweat where you were afraid earlier, can smell the plants you've walked through... you stepped in a little bit of dung a ways back, it's dried now, just on the tip of your boot... I can smell it like it's right in front of me and fresh."

The two exchanged a quick smile... and another sniff echoed out.

"...Anthan's over there, isn't he?"

Carza nodded silently.

"Here to kill me?"

"He's used to this sort of thing."

"Might ask him to put me down. Might be easier than killing myself. Not sure if I have the guts for it. Honestly, it's... you know contamination? It turns you into an animal. An animal would gnaw off its own leg to escape a trap. Anything to survive. Even if gnawing off its leg would kill it faster than the damn trap would. Thing is, that same thing's in my head. I can't help, but just think... I suppose, I just can't see beyond the moment. I'd doom myself to death if I could survive another hour. Makes me calmer. Stupider. Like a dumb cow."

She grunted.

"...so, what are my choices? Kill myself, be killed... run away?"

Carza paused. A memory was resurfacing. Something Anthan had said.

"...there's another option, but Anthan didn't elaborate."

Lirana's voice rose to a yell.

"Then elaborate, you lurking bastard. Elaborate.

Anthan stepped closer. Been lurking for a bit. He had a grim expression, and his hands never left his rifle. Lirana stared impudently up at him, showing a hint of defiance in the face of the inevitable.

"There's another option."

"And what is it? Spit it out. I'm not going to be sane for long, haven't got time to waste."

"Some of my mates, they were shot by us. Some shot themselves. Some just stayed behind, and... no idea if they finished themselves off or let the elements take them."

"And the rest?"

"...one or two did something else. Saw it, through my scope."

"Then tell me. Just out of curiosity."

Anthan squatted down - a soldier's squat, from someone accustomed to jumping back up at a moment's notice. His gun barrel gleamed a little in the light, and she saw that he was displeased with that fact - did he want it painted? Sanded down until there was no sheen to be found? Anything to conceal himself?

"...some decided to walk off. Into the wild. Decided that they were already monsters, so they figured... why not go further? The Great War... that was full of mutants working together. Doesn't take a genius to think that an unaffiliated mutant might be useful. Some of them actually got somewhere. One, at least. He... wanted to be left behind. I kept an eye through my scope, the landscape afforded good views. Saw him waiting in the wind, letting his scent carry. Mutant came out, big bastard, used to be a bull, I think. But had flanks made of bark, and legs that were just too damn long, too many joints. Armoured on all sides. Nasty thing. He cracked it open and feasted. Mutated. Last I saw, he was twice the size of a normal man, and screaming at the top of his lungs while another mutant came out."

"That right?"

"That right."

"Did he live?"

"No idea. But if he did, he must be... a big old lad."

Lirana stared at him silently. Pondering. Maybe some hunger was awakening in her. All her longings twisted - her desire for a normal life, for children and a warm house, for comfort and domesticity guaranteed by wealth... all twisted and turned into a gnawing hunger which demanded the consumption of contamination. Anything to grow stronger. Carza's eyes were wide. And after a minute, Lirana spoke, her voice low and thoughtful.

"...back home, old name for contamination is 'Godblood'. You know that?"

Silence.

"They said the earth was a great monster. A huge, hungry thing which eats and eats and eats, and only the old gods managed to put it down. Mountains were spears, they said. Why this part of the world is so infested - it's right where the killing wounds are. Say that once the Godblood was kinder, and smoother, and thin. Made you healthy and hearty. Repaired you. They say that in the old days, the immortal chiefs ruled this place from their longhouses, and bathed in great iron cauldrons filled with Godblood to renew themselves. But the monster began to rot, and the blood grew clammy and clotted, and little things lived in it now. And the immortal chiefs went mad. And Godblood became a curse."

Her eyes were invisible behind her gas mask... but Carza could imagine them staring unblinking.

"Makes you think, huh?"

Anthan grunted.

"Dangerous. Wouldn't recommend it."

"...yeah. Yeah."

Lirana stood up suddenly, rolling her neck with ominous cracks.

"Thank you for recording my life. If that gets into a library... I'll feel pretty damn good about myself, I'll say that. Nice to have a legacy."

Anthan hummed.

"Made your peace?"

"As much peace as can be made. At this point, I think I'm too far gone to feel fear. All I feel is... this low satisfaction. I'm still alive. And that means I'm fine. Everything else is just... irrelevant."

She spoke with detached calmness. Resigned, maybe. Too far gone. Too lost to the mutation raging through her, turning her from a human into something incomparably more refined, more brutish, more perfect and savage. Lirana Magg. Carza looked at her with a pulsing feeling of grief in her gut. Another one, lost. Egg, Cam, and now Lirana. Of the six that had set out... three remained. Herself, Anthan, and Hull. Lirana shook slightly... and Carza realised that some part of her was still afraid. A part did regret coming here, experiencing this. This was how life went, she supposed. Sometimes death came at a time which was appropriate and satisfying. Rarely, though. Most often, it just... arrived with unceremonious bluntness. Cam, stabbed by a drunk. Egg, killed by a hungry mutant. Lirana, taken by mutation. All of these were unremarkable deaths, really. If she read about them in a newspaper, she'd feel... a little grim, but nothing more. People died to drunken brawls constantly, mutants killed thousands, mutation killed even more. But... she knew these people. Cam, only a little. Egg, a little more. And Lirana... Lirana had come close to being a friend. A friendly acquaintance.

Carza looked at her, and wondered about all the maybes of her life. All the ways it could've gone that didn't lead here.

Anthan tightened his grip on his rifle.

And Lirana nodded.

"Carza, you're not half bad. Good luck. I don't blame you for this happening, it's... well, it's the sort of thing I deserve. Thanks for recording me. Hope that I was able to help you come to something. Anthan, you're not half bad either. Keep the scholars safe, or I'll be very disappointed. And tell Hull... tell him that it's a shame we never worked out."

Carza blinked.

"...I will. And thank you. For everything. For Kralat, and... just sticking with us."

"No problem. Send my salary to my cousin."

Her voice was quivering, but she clenched her fists to restrain any outbursts of emotion.

"I'll be on my way, then. I expect I'll be a while."

A few coca leaves were shoved into her mouth.

And Lirana turned on her heel...

And walked away. Into the forests. Into the place where the dogs laughed and the dark grew thick and strange.

And slowly, slowly... the pressure on Carza relented. The evolutionary imperative lessened.

She let out a breath.

It kept going for almost half a minute. So much had been locked up in her...

And when the last gasp came out...

She began to cry. Just a few tears. She'd exhausted so much along the way here, so many tears, so much tension... she could muster a few tears now. And that was all.

She clutched Lirana's biography to her chest, and remained very still for a little while. Until the sound of footsteps faded entirely. And Anthan wrapped a coat around her shoulders and started to lead her back to the village at the foot of the mountains.

She didn't resist.