CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - A SLEEPLESS NIGHT

Mahar Jovan vanished. And the river consumed them once more, the Irizah slowly broadening as it began to meet the churning expanse of the Tulavanta. The wilderness swiftly became more untamed, and the river was almost immediately depopulated of trash - it flowed down from Mahar Jovan to Fidelizh, so Tanner didn't get to see the slow decline of familiar bottles and crates... well, not so familiar now. It was funny - the most familiar river trash was probably closer to Fidelizh, and the closer she got to Mahar Jovan, the newer, populated by brands which only emerged in the last eight years, reflecting trends which she had absolutely no familiarity with. Still. Hardly mattered. The waters of the Irizah were almost lazy, sluggishly pulsing across the landscape, the waters growing more and more populated with fish as they went upstream. The nets were gone, after all. These were the hordes that would be harvested for the infinite panoply of riverine food that Mahar Jovan dined on. That was something Tanner wouldn't miss - the endless, endless fish. She found herself lingering on the deck, hovering around the toothsome railing, looking out to see the scaled bodies squirming amidst the grey waves, enjoying their meandering chaos. No point swimming too far south too quickly - they'd just run out of river, soon enough. Easier to meander, to undulate, to glide with lazy grace. No destination in mind but tomorrow.

She found herself mapping out her memory-room again. Going over the tricks of the trade. She'd been cautioned that the colony would have no major libraries - they intended to ship up the basic exemplars, the texts that every judge used. Even if her job was simply to observe and record, to lay the groundwork for a proper judicial establishment - for if something was to be done, it ought to be done well - she still had to compose herself as a judge, do as she was instructed, act properly. And that meant she had to rely on her own memory in order to conduct the law, to compose judgements. The arts of memory had been invented back when printing books was expensive and difficult, all done by hand on expensive paper. The judges hadn't minded the arrival of the printing press, but regarded it as no excuse for laziness - modernity was a matter of convenience and sin, the judges were happy to take the former and skirt the latter with prudent scrupulousness. So, they still had students copy out long pecia from the scriveners, they still used exemplars, they refused to use typewriters unless absolutely necessary, they kept using expensive, delicate theurgic quills... and, they practised the arts of memory. She took a deep breath, focusing.

The arts of memory were manifold. One aspect was the place. All the scholars said that memorising a physical space was simpler than memorising a text. The human mind was a physical thing located in a watery organ in the skull, it wasn't meant to deal with naked notions, it needed clothing for them. The human mind was averse to nudity, after all - everything needed clothes, layers of accepted interpretation, or physical anchors. 'Knowledge', Halima had said, 'isn't something you acquire, it's something you tame'. For Tanner, her physical anchor was her room in the labyrinth, with her easy chair, her bottles, her double bed, her wardrobe. It was easy and every button on her clothes and her shoes. She was trying to remember the necessary principles of the law of nuisance - she imagined that was be fairly important in the colony, in cramped, cold conditions, with primitive amenities. Her room was suffused with meaning, all of a sudden. She could see precedents marking themselves out on the alcoves, the texture of her bed was the twittering strangeness of public nuisance - very important to remember precisely, to avoid claims of tyranny. She moved her hand down the front of her blouse, feeling the pearl buttons... this little button was private nuisance by encroaching on a neighbour's land, this little button was nuisance by direct and unambiguous physical injury to a neighbour's land, and this cheeky little button was interference with a neighbour's quiet enjoyment of his land, and the buttons along her wrist were the clarifications of fanciful complaints, for the law did not concern itself with trivialities. What had Sister Halima said? Right, right, 'a crumb of solid memory is worth a loaf of conjecture and speculation.'

She mulled over a word in her mind: 'nuisance'. The arts of memory had more facets than just physical space - 'nuisance' led her in new directions, reminded her of other segments of law. 'Nu' made her think of 'nudity', which led her to consider matters of public indecency, which led to intoxication. 'Sance' sounded similar to 'stance', and stance made her think of threatening demeanours, and the means of aligning subjective opinions with legal objectivity in the perception of threat and menace. The shape of the 'n' and the 'u' together reminded her of a winding road, and a winding road could indicate the emergence of nuisance from inconvenience, something that could be very hard to prosecute, but nonetheless ought to be noted, and might serve to aggravate future issues. And the 'i' was... well, 'eye', the dot reminded her of a staring eye from the top of a thin human, and that made her think of how the obstruction of a view was not generally considered sufficient grounds to claim a nuisance had been caused, something important when a ruined city was part and parcel of the colony.

She explored the law like this for some time, flickering from idea to idea, using the sounds and shapes of words, the textures and sights of familiar spaces, and then adding more - the college liked getting people to read bestiaries and scientific manuals, simply in order to provide more mnemonics. Assemblages of birds could each form little principles, songs she'd heard could become indelibly associated with others, and so on and so forth. But not eels. She kept eels away from the law, from the art of memory. The eels were hers. The only memories they were tied up with was her childhood, the happier moments of it. She looked down into the grey water, thinking deeply, her brows furrowing. Glad that she was going to get some help, a team of other judges from other cities. The judges didn't... well, they lacked the right to practise in most cities, at least, as supreme authorities, but their opinions were often considered valuable, and didn't often get appealed by parties judged against. In the end, they saved money. The judges practised law as part of a holy mission, not in an effort to curry favour or wealth. They made a little money, sure, but that was never the real goal, no matter how some of her colleagues behaved. Put simply... they were cheap. For most people, a judge of the Golden Door was the only legal counsel they could afford, and as long as that remained true, they'd always be in business. Still. She'd seen the barges carrying failed or overturned cases, prosecutions which died once a ruling authority caught wind of it, times when the semi-immaculate laws of the Golden Door clashed with... temporal laws. More ash for the urns buried beneath the labyrinth, near the place where they once hung criminals, back when they had the right.

Her thoughts were interrupted suddenly by the arrival of the captain at her side, a fat cheroot in her mouth, puffing away with huge clouds of acrid smoke. Her slightly deformed eyes flicked over to Tanner, who stiffened.

"Doing well?"

Tanner nodded quietly.

"Quite well. Thank you. Yourself?"

"Ship-shape. Should be arriving at that souse's destination the day after tomorrow. Stopping there for a night or so, just to get a few last things in order - that's the last point for weeks where we can get reliable telegrams, need to check movements, chart everything properly."

Tanner nodded along, humming at all the right moments. Fair enough.

"...small thing, though. Got word this morning, just before we set off."

Tanner tilted her head.

"Hm?"

"Got told in Fidelizh that you were travelling down with a team of... about five other people? Three of them were making their way out on their own, easier than way, but we were meant to pick up two."

Tanner nodded.

"I think it was two judges from further west, around my age, and three judges from Tuz-Drakkat off to the east - they're heading over at the Herxiel crossing, closer for them."

The captain grimaced, showing a hint of sharper-than-usual teeth, and scratched at the side of her mottled neck - nails slid right off the skin like it was covered in oil. Mutations had already given her a little extra resistance in that department... well, all but a single, blackened, slightly mutated nail, which managed to latch for a second, almost scratching properly. She wondered, idly, if that nail was venomous, or just exotic in some fashion.

"Right, right. Well, bad news on the western front - we're not picking up those two."

Tanner blinked

.

"I'm sorry?"

"Nothing to apologise for, not your fault. Not mine, neither. So no-one's apologising to anyone, I suppose."

Tanner pushed back off the railing, lips pursed, hands gripping one another nervously.

"Why, exactly? I mean, is there-"

"Trains. They were getting a train out to a port along the Tulavanta, then we were meant to pick them up before we swung into that tributary for the last stretch of the journey. Well, their train was attacked - Sleepless, they think, some of those freaks from out west. The ones that sacked Krodaw. Well, they're still raiding places, guess these two got unlucky."

Tanner paled. Sleepless. She'd heard rumours of them, once upon a time. Just... lunatics, half-mutated lunatics. More so than the mutant-hunters - both were exposed to mutation, but the Sleepless didn't have the good grace to monitor their own, to kill them off when they lost their minds. They just muzzled them and used them as attack dogs instead, unleashed wherever they'd make the most impact. They'd taken Krodaw years ago, after a years-long campaign of terror, and... well. Weird to hear about them, thought they'd just cannibalised one another to death without a common enemy. Evidently some had survived. And had decided to expand slightly.

"Are they alright? Did they get captured, or..."

She trailed off. The captain shook her head wearily.

"Nah, none of that. They weren't on board - the train was destroyed before it could reach their station, Sleepless blocked the rail with tree trunks, captured who they could, robbed everyone else, killed a couple of guards, moved on. Sabotaged the train to stop it moving."

"Why?"

"Why not? They're Sleepless, they do what they want. So, they're delayed."

"Can't we wait for them?"

"Definitely not. Winter's getting close - the tributaries around the Tulavanta, they freeze up once the weather gets harsh. Need to push on if we're going to find any clear stretches, there's some good lakes we've used in the past, those tend to stay open. Longer we wait, more of a chance we just have to poke along the main Tulavanta for a few months, just waiting for things to melt. Can't delay."

Tanner shivered.

"...so…"

"Five to three. Sorry. Message got dropped off for me in Mahar Jovan, just before we left."

The captain slapped her roughly on the back, but Tanner didn't move an inch. Too locked up by concern, and much too large in general. Five to three. Her team had already lost two fifths of its members... no, not lost, just delayed. She tried to force herself to be optimistic, running her gloved hands over one another, filtering the air for luck. They were delayed. Might not be able to get up... well, if the captain was right about the tributaries freezing over, then it might need to wait for next spring. That was fine. Workable, at least. No-one had died... well, except for some of the people on that train, but no judges had died, none of her team had died. They'd be along in spring, and she still had three potential colleagues coming in from Tuz-Drakkat. Sure, it wasn't ideal, but nothing ever was. All she could ask for was a few colleagues and some resources. They were just doing monitoring, after all. No need to grow excessively worried.

...still. It was unexpected, and... slightly unnerving.

"Thank you for telling me. I'm sorry if this causes any inconvenience for you, I completely understand the need to push north."

She spoke automatically, by muscle memory, mind concerned with other things. The captain replied, but Tanner barely heard her.

Five to three.

40% reduction. Not exactly ideal.

Not exactly ideal.

She needed to wear an optimistic god. And soon.

* * *

Soon was tonight, as it turned out. The evening was drawing in - Marana hadn't moved from her room once, but occasionally there was the sound of movement, or mumbled words, or simply snoring. Not sure if she was napping continuously or meandering around like a flouncy artist. Surrealism... no idea what it was, but that packet had contained a lot of drawings. Presumably that meant it was an artistic school of some kind. Sounded dangerous. Tanner imagined she was probably just... swanning around, drinking wine, dreaming of things, maybe hammering something out for half an hour a day, before requesting a little more cash from mummy and daddy dearest. No, wait, that was mean, that was very mean. Just because her sister had decided to radicalise Algi didn't reflect poorly on Marana at all. No, that would be the wine-vomit-stains on Tanner's cot, the smell of dock oil and booze, and the feeling of her slightly boozy kisses on Tanner's cheeks. Anyway. Needed optimism. Not sure of the stars, but... right, right, general-purpose. That meant... Clambering-Amber-Debutante, she was usually workable no matter the celestial conditions. Just had to... yes, replace a few of the buttons in her blouse with small amber ones she'd packed specifically for this, before cracking her fingers one by one (needed to remember to keep doing that throughout tonight), and slipping some small pins through her hair in a certain configuration. Simple enough. General-purpose gods usually were.

And Clambering-Amber-Debutante was excellent for this precise moment. Optimistic, capable of looking on the brighter side of life no matter what, relentlessly chipper and cheerful. Not quite as introverted as she liked her gods, but there was a time for introversion, and a time for enthusiasm. And right now, she needed to be enthusiastic - after Algi, after the news from the captain, after all that business. And as she threaded the last needle through her hair, she could feel a weight settling upon a shoulders. Almost. More of a subtle shifting of the air than anything else, an imagined prickle running through her nerves, like something had arrived. A goddess, riding on her back like a monkey, staring over her shoulder with a bright, amber-toothed grin splitting her face almost in two. She closed her eyes and focused, trying to imagine, as best as she could, the smell of warm cinnamon and wine - the favoured combination of the Clambering-Amber-Debutante. The wine was easy, the cinnamon would need work. Back in Fidelizh, some people had whole scent-books, collections of perfume-infused paper which they could take a deep sniff from, just to really charge the air with the right sympathies. Still, if she imagined warmth and wine, she could almost get there. It didn't do anything, but it helped. Tanner wasn't especially superstitious, she continually insisted this, but she liked the rites of superstition. Helped her relax.

She stopped in front of the crooked mirror by her door.

Paused.

Eased her mouth into a smile. Small. Polite.

Eased it further. Alright, alright, hint of teeth, getting better.

Now get it a bit wider, show off more of her teeth, try and show off as many as possible...

No, less, less, she looked feral. Fewer teeth. Less wide. Don't try and split her face open from side to side, that would be absurd. And alarming.

And...

There, that was a grin. Just like the Debutante demanded. Now, she was a civilised, wholesome lady, who just so happened to be able to lift ammunition crates like they were drunken heiresses - in short, like nothing. The thought actually made her grin widen a little more, a hint of enthusiasm entering it.

A knock at the door.

The grin snapped to something more polite and reserved, and less like she was preparing herself to bite the heads off several firstborns.

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"Yes?"

"Judge, come on., I'm starving, and I shan't go upstairs alone, it's not fashionable."

Tanner groaned internally. Alright. The door creaked as she pushed it open, and leaning artfully against the frame was a familiar wine-stained artist. Marana smiled with something that, once, had probably been elegant detachment. Now, it made her seem slightly bleary, and just a tad out of place. Tanner brought her hands together in front of her stomach, cultivating luck automatically, and Marana unceremoniously gripped her shoulder and dragged her out... before tsk-ing.

"Take my arm."

"Uh."

"Take my arm, judge. And allow me to rest on you as we ascend. In this world, one either drapes or is draped on. And, with all the politeness I can muster, I'm not certain you could drape on me without breaking something."

"Um."

A pause.

"Alright."

"Oh, do be less taciturn. I swear, you're worse than... anyway. Come on. Upstairs."

She did, indeed, drape. A woman only slightly younger than her mother was draped slightly into her shoulder, leaning artfully on her arm. It was bizarre, she still stank of wine, and yet she composed herself with a strange degree of dignity. Her room, from what Tanner could see of it, was crammed with art that reminded her of the nightmare she'd had after that fireworks display a few years ago, and yet she was dressed well (green dress, long sleeves that covered everything up to her wrists, embroidered with silver vines and with a well-chosen overcoat to keep her warm in the cool night), her hair was delicately pinned into something of a hairdo, and her lips were rouged just enough to be tasteful without becoming trashy. Unsure of how much of her dignity was muscle memory, pride, or aristocratic blood memory. She'd heard about that stuff, apparently some people could let their ancestors ride on their backs instead of the gods, so maybe there was a series of be-wigged men and women in elaborate frocks riding on her back like some sort of deranged layer cake.

Ooh. Marana the pickled layer cake. Definitely sharing that with Eygi, definitely.

Her stomach rumbled at the thought of... pickled layer cake, apparently. Well, that or more generalised hunger. She deeply hoped it was the latter, the former would be terrifically worrying.

"So... why did Algi, that perverted little tadpole, choose not to deliver the packages himself?"

Tanner froze, almost stumbling over a step. Marana moved smoothly, not a single shiver appearing in her stride despite the wobbly giant beside her.

"And based on that little tremor you just had, I'll take it there's history?"

Her eyes were almost predatory.

"Does our mutual amphibious acquaintance have a liking for-"

"No. No. Just... someone I knew a while ago."

"Hm? No scandal?"

Beyond him being a neo-monarchist oddball who'd almost gotten her arrested and deported just by being briefly associated with her?

"No. Nothing of the sort. Just... surprised to see him. He gave me the package and asked me to relay it. Didn't say anything about why he couldn't do it himself, and he was gone before I could ask."

Liar. Total liar. What a beastly creature she was, she belonged in a children's bedtime story, living under a bridge or in some sort of grotesque mead-hall. Dolt. Complete dolt - call herself a judge? She wasn't a judge, she was... was a galumphing elephantine beanus. Yes, a beanus, meaning a first-year student, and that was all, there was no further meaning to the word. Gosh, she was a beanus. Marana looked her up and down, humming thoughtfully. That was another thing - drunk as a skunk, her breath smelled a little of wine even after a day of near-sobriety, and yet her eyes crackled with some sort of intelligence.

"Hm. Hm. Well, I'm sure you barely associated with him - you seem like a frightfully intelligent young woman, whole life ahead of you. I'm sure you wouldn't have associated with him at your... judge-schoolhouse, why, the way he describes it, he did nothing but lounge around, read obscure books that are obscure for a reason, and go to random cafes to dine on small fingercakes."

Tanner blushed slightly, redness appearing at the tips of her ears. Marana's grin was eerily toothy.

"Oh, yes, I'm sure you wouldn't dare to associate with such an evil-smelling spawn of a she-goat as Algi, why, I imagine you smelled him out the moment he arrived, and ran in the opposite direction. I'm certain you, a pinnacle of decorum and understanding and loveliness, would never dare associate with such a... shape of nothing. Certainly not."

Tanner coughed, and they kept moving, the fresh air beckoning. Marana leaned closer, whispering confidingly into Tanner's burning ears.

"And I hear he has a sister, can you imagine, some family decided that one Algi was just a sad accident of their cubicular gyrations, and that if they did it again, surely they'd succeed in producing something of worth."

Tanner blinked a few times.

"...well, I wouldn't want to be too mean. He's a bit of an ass, but I... don't really like speaking ill of people."

Lie, she enjoyed it from time to time, but only when corresponding with Eygi. She got one outlet for being a bit of a bitch (pardon the expression), and Eygi was that outlet. Not Marana, with her boozy breath and crow's-feet that reminded her of the cracked surface of a too-dry cake. And speaking ill of Eygi... no. Definitely not.

"Of course. Of course. I understand completely. Judges must hold themselves to a higher standard."

Good, she understood... no, wait. Marana's eyes were still dancing with amusement, her mouth was curled into a smile, and the hand curled into Tanner's elbow was drumming out a slight beat on the skin, almost mockingly. Not sure what was going on. Not sure what she was implying. Not sure about anything, really. Did Algi tell her about Tanner in the past? Was that an option? Oh, gods... she forced a smile on her face, thought of cinnamon and wine, felt a particularly chipper goddess massage her shoulders through her blouse. Right, just be... chipper. Pinnacle of enthusiasm. Apex of whimsy. So opposed to misery that she flunked out of the grand academy of misery-guts in her first week.

Marana's smile in return was both more effortless and more subtle than Tanner could dream of pulling off.

The deck approached.

The sound of hunters drinking and eating filled the air.

Tanner took a deep breath...

And Marana leaned forwards with a ravenous look more associated with certain species of predatory fish.

* * *

The mutant-hunters... say what you will of their minds, of their bodies, of their reckless self-destruction, of their gruesome boat with its burning heart... but they knew how to make merry. Alcohol did nothing. of course. They barked loudly that it was useless - they could drink and drink and drink, but it wouldn't affect them, at least, none but the most green recruits, the young men who had been too young for the Great War, had joined up for pay, willing to sell their lives for its sake. Alcohol was a toxin, ultimately. A poison that had some remarkably pleasurable side-effects, nothing more. Drink too much of it, and it revealed itself more fully, started to rot the organs, dull the senses, and eventually, render the body so incapable of independent existence that the shakes took hold in alcohol's absence, delirium tremens powerful enough to shake the body to pieces. And mutation tended to purge toxins, along with any other contaminants, before it got to work warping the flesh into newer, more monstrous shapes.

But...

"Nah, nah, so the liquor doesn't work on us any more, no, no, no, but liquor is toxin. And toxin can be weaponised. You... right, there was a man, back during the war, worked near my unit. They say he got mutated badly, real badly. Wounded during a battle, passed out, was soaked in contamination for hours before they could dig him out, protective gear was shredded and everything. But he was also soused out of his mind. Could do that sort of thing in the war, you got drunk as hell before battles - mutants don't roar often, but when they do, it's worse than normal roaring. Calculated to make you shit yourself, cry your eyes out, rumble your bones until you want to curl up and let the world die before you move again. So... where was I?"

Marana smiled saucily over a little glass of brandy - they didn't keep much liquor on board, for the aforementioned reasons, and what they did was strong. Not wasting room on big barrels of beer. Brandy... no, no, cut brandy, brandy with a little hint of something the theurgists generally used in their experiments. Brandy to make the potent stuff feel slightly more tolerable. Marana was circling it around over and over and over, enjoying the acrid smell. Tanner still nursed hers. Kept it away from her mouth. Not that she was afraid of liquor, she drank it from time to time, but she had no enormous love for it. Coca wine satisfied her needs in that regular. Marana spoke softly.

"I believe you were talking about a man who was as pickled as an egg when-"

The speaker, one of the hunters, a woman with shockingly red hair and a face marked with innumerable craters from conflict, and strange keloid scars pulsed in a handful of them. Mutation trying to heal, mistaking the scar tissue for healthy matter that ought to be reproduced, and creating odd, pimple-like things, some of which spread out little scarred tendrils to elsewhere on the face. Made her seem like she had an astrological map painted out on her face, especially as her skin grew red with excitement, while the scars retained a stellar paleness no matter what, no blood intruding into their immaculate coils.

"Right, right, right, right, I remember, I remember. So, this soused fellow, he was drowned in mutant bodies, splashed with contamination, and the mutation... I guess it thought that 'oh, how glorious-"

She drew out the 'glorious' to at least a dozen syllables.

"'...how glorious, how glorious, this thing is full of lovely lovely venom, like a scorpion or a wasp! Well, fellows, let's plump him up and set him ready!' And before we knew it, this thing was crawling around, like a... torso of a man. Tail like a mermaid, all fishy, but made out of human flesh. Covered in these fronds, somewhere between fat and muscle and nipple-skin, dripping in venom. Well, we thought it was venom. Then he launched himself madly at one of us, the stinger made contact..."

A pause.

"She was rolling on the ground giggling like a child, face reddening, saying how much she loved us. Then she vomited. Then she died. But what a fucking way to go. Drunk off your tits. So. Go on. Drink, we like seeing people drink."

Tanner shivered as these hungry eyes set upon her. The older veterans had a distinct animal quality to their gazes, the heavy gold rings on their necklaces glinted like the flat dead eyes of nocturnal predators, and they lounged on their haunches like a pack of jackals - jackals, the art of memory kicked in, jackals were associated with marine and riverine salvage, she immediately felt a few little specifications of cost twitch through her mind before she could dismiss them. Regardless. Regardless. She sipped cautiously at her drink, out of politeness. As expected. Nothing. Literally nothing. It took a lot to make her feel more than a little tingly inside, and if she'd eaten, it took even more. Marana sipped gladly, swilling the liquid around her mouth delicately, before swallowing with nary the sound of a gulp, barely the slightest bob of her throat. She hummed.

"Notes of citrus and liquid death, hint of plum. What spirit did you cut this with, my darling?"

"Rectified."

"Oh my."

She looked admiringly at the glass.

"That's quite excellent. I wonder what would happen if one were to add this... rectified spirit to, say, the punch bowl at a happy family dinner."

Raucous laughter, and Tanner smiled politely along with the others. The evening continued much in that vein. A little dinner of fresh meat, purchased in Mahar Jovan, the last bits of freshness before they set into the salted stuff, the preserved stuff that tasked like leather and spite. And then, booze. Well, booze for the human. Tanner watched as the other humans became more and more soused, the recruits settling into bawdy ballads or drowsy dazes, Marana lounging elegantly like she was on a divan, her hair tumbling around her head in glittering curls. The hunters mostly watched with too-sharp grins on their mottled faces, while the captain stayed at a distance, keeping a sober eye on affairs. Sometimes a hunter would break away to fight with one of the others, the kind of loose, harmless tussle that mostly just expressed energy. Marana ran a slender, slightly liquor-purpled finger around the rim of her glass, an ambiguous little smile on her face. She looked younger, in this light. Didn't smile or frown broadly enough to turn her face wrinkled in age, so age emerged through other means. Usually, age surged through chasms. With Marana, it oozed through pores, and slowly strained, slowly sagged, slowly unwound and planted little cracks around her eyes, which retained the glitter of youth... at least, around the red veins of alcoholism.

All this vanished once one saw the nose. Slightly bloated, and irrevocably an imperial indigo.

Well, more of a purple. But indigo alliterated with irrevocable and imperial. Eygi would appreciate the wordplay.

Suddenly, Marana spoke, and her voice had a low, casual purr to it which made Tanner feel very nervous indeed.

"You large creature, this isn't affecting you one little bit."

Tanner froze. Wasn't looking at her, but it was obvious who she was talking to.

"Not really."

"But you can feel it, can't you? A little warmth blooming in your stomach, a slight ripple through the flesh, something deeper than flesh, something that sits in the skin and makes it want to itch slightly, like you want to shuck it all off?"

One of the hunters had stilled, and was staring, enraptured, a sharp tongue licking her lips. Tanner shivered.

"Hm."

"You know what's another poison? Spice. Spice is a poison. Tell me, my lovely, can you still...?"

This question was for the hunter, and now another had joined her in paying close attention. The hunter shifted uneasily.

"Sometimes, I think. Not much for spice."

"Give it a go. Might work - and you can find spices that are very strong indeed. It's funny, isn't it? We find poisons, and we take them just to feel a little snap of something. By all rights, we should we eating grass and unseasoned meat. But we had to dig our hands into beehives for combs, had to scrape salt from stones, had to eat all the poisonous things just to see if they tasked particularly good... you know, in Krodaw, they used to have a little unique thing, a type of thin, spindly bird, so thin and small you could eat it all at once, gobble it down with a crunch. They fed it with a local flower, and in its delicate stomach, there was a spice which emerged. A little red bean of spice, nesting amidst the bones. You'd crunch and crunch, have to hide your head under a cloth to stop people from seeing you debase yourself, and then... pop. A rush of spice into the tongue, agitating the throat, you'd feel your eyes water and redden, and your lips would burn for minutes afterwards. Nothing else ever tasted as it should for the rest of the evening. Only by the morning would you be able to taste things normally again..."

She paused, and her face seemed a little sad. Tanner watched her with naked interest, and the hunters with naked hunger. One was actively digging her fingers into her knees to stabilise herself, the sharp, chitin-like nails easily going through her sea-worthy trousers, yielding rubious blood from where she delved too deep.

"All gone now."

Marana's voice was accidentally small, emerging almost by accident, and she hiccuped messily before pulling herself under control. The captain spoke lowly, voice barely audible, hunger dancing in her eyes, too. Tanner wondered if some mutant had internalised spice as a form of venom - imagined them sweating pepper, bleeding paprika, exhaling gas that tasted of chillis. Organs so hot they could kill with a taste, before you even managed to mutate yourself.

"Krodaw. You're from there."

"Daughter of the governor."

"How was it?"

That was Tanner, speaking softly.

"Hot."

The captain grimaced.

"Sure, it was hot, we all know it was hot... alright, alright, tell us a horror story about the Sleepless. We gave you horror stories about mutants. We've heard stuff about those freaks. Hell, our judicial friend here's had her team sliced up because of them, they ran a train off the rails, killed a bunch of people. What d'you think they got up to?"

Tanner stiffened. Awkward question, right? Awakening ugly memories. Marana didn't seem to hear it for a long, long moment, tracing her finger around the rim of the glass, a low keening note coming from the contact. A second, and she seemed awfully tired... then she snapped. Smiled - and the smile tightened up her face, making her seem incomparably younger. Her finger left the rim of the glass, and instead tapped a little rhythm across the side, delicate and strange.

"A question for a question, darling. We took Krodaw for trade, I was raised in trade, immersed in it, I know nothing but exchanges. My first word was 'lower' when I heard someone overcharging my father for bars of soap. So, how about this - tell me about those golden rings on your necks, any reason?"

Tanner leaned in. Curious. The hunters stiffened uncomfortably, and one of them slouched away to stare over the dark waves of the river. They never stopped moving the boat - a small crew kept it going at all times, the metal heart unceasing now the theurgist was gone. Great glaring headlights kept them from crashing, but there was still a sense of drifting in a great shapeless void. And now that void tightened, the hunters closing in. Eyes flat and sometimes angry. The red-haired one, with the crater-star face, growled softly. The half-bandages one was silent. And the captain spoke humourlessly.

"Know how to kill a mood, don't you?"

Marana smiled guiltlessly.

"Perhaps. But you did it first. Go on, then."

The red-haired one spoke lowly, her earlier enthusiasm gone.

"We were recruited for the Great War when it was running hot. When it started, they sent out the fighting men. Then, they conscripted. Younger and younger. Women were stuffed into factories, kids ran messages. When times got tough, they grabbed the singles, the women without families, shoved them into the field. Then... went for the widows."

Oh.

Oh.

Wedding rings.

The hunter kept going, her strange cratered face gleaming slightly in the light of the swinging lanterns, which creaked mournfully, like solemn carrion birds.

"My Jekmal got sent off, died. We'd just married, so no kids. Not yet. Sent me off a year after he went."

She saluted wearily, voice bitter.

"Sir, yes, sir, Widow Yellima reporting for duty, sir, yes, sir, tears are dried and I'm wearing my husband's underpants, yes sir, still warm!"

A dull, cold laugh ran around the circle. The half-bandaged one spoke grimly.

"Me too. Earlier. I had to stuff rags in my uniform to make it fit, cut my hair short. Shame. I used to have good hair. Never grew back right."

The captain snorted.

"Right. Sure. I'll believe that. Me, my mother and I got in the same unit, she had me young enough, didn't have any other siblings to keep her at home. Fought like animals, two of us. You don't know your mother until you've seen her cackling like a witch while firing up a flamethrower. Funny thing - my pa ran off when I was a girl, guess what? We found him again. Different unit, but he'd been conscripted, same as everyone else. And I met my half-brother, bastard had another damn family he'd run off too. Great, that. Great. They'd have kept us apart, but numbers were too low for luxuries like that. By that point, ma had more scars than he did, and when his son came along to try and break up the spat between his father and some random madwoman, my ma decked him into the mud, stomped on his head, then kicked his pa in the todger. Got along pretty well after that. Mostly. Made a good team on a few occasions, he had better eyes for spotting, she had better aim... half-brother and I got along pretty well once we'd been in enough scraps. A hundred dinners wouldn't have made the four of us get along, but stick us in a fox-hole, give us guns, give us mutants... hell, we got along like a house on fire."

A small grin.

"Till the war ended, at least. Then..."

She trailed off, but the others kept going. Story after story. Husbands and brothers and fathers and mothers, even one or two toddlers they'd left with elderly relatives before marching off, coming back to find them almost properly grown. Marana watched from beneath half-lidded eyes, her chest rising and falling softly as she breathed. Tanner examined her. It was... hm. The wedding rings thing, that could've been figured out by intuition, if Tanner hadn't overlooked it during the initial excitement. Marana had... she'd noticed, hadn't she? Figured it out quickly. The reason these women were still going while so many male veterans had wound down into dusty death - they'd come later in the war, conscripted after the men were starting to run out, and they'd been less exposed to mutation as a consequence. But now it was all catching up with them. Anyway, she'd figured out the wedding rings, and had used it to steer away from her own uncomfortable topics. Marana, while she thought no-one was looking, tugged a strand of hair away from her head, staring at it mildly... before setting it back once she'd seen a glimmer of grey in the thread.

Tanner kept watching her.

Marana's sardonic eyes slowly drifted over, locking onto the giantess'.

"Hm?"

Tanner shrugged.

"Nothing. Sorry."

"Surprised?"

Silence. Marana sipped what was left of her drink - not sure how many she'd had.

"Believe it or not, darling, us middle-aged crones do still drink, but we're in the middle of the race - enough to realise it's a marathon, not a sprint. One simply drinks slower, and with greater consistency. Makes the world a much rosier place. It's like Apo in spring."

She laughed throatily, and as she moved, the sleeve of her dress moved...

And she jerked suddenly, pushing it back into place, her face significantly tougher.

Tanner blinked.

"Go on, large woman, drink something."

"Tanner. My name's Tanner."

"Very well. Tanner."

Tanner nodded in satisfaction... then twitched. She could hear something. Something...

She rushed for the railing, an uncontrollable smile bursting out on her face. Oh, yes, yes, she was right, she was right, she knew they liked moving at night, and she recognised that distinct sound, and...

Eels!

Nighttime eels! Slithering and coursing, even heading onto the bank to go amongst the reeds!

Her smile was literally from ear to ear as an oily, winding river accompanied them upwards, the moon peeking from behind a cloud to turn their dark bodies an immaculate silver, like they were being accompanied by a fluid stream of moonlight. She could vaguely hear Marana shuffling to see what she was seeing. Didn't pay attention. Nor did she pay attention to the high-pitched, throaty, distinctly unladylike cackle which erupted from the rather-too-drunk woman.

This was making the whole adventure worth it.

Oh, they were darling...