CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE - EPITAPH

Stupid though it was, she almost expected Mr. Canima to emerge out of the snow itself. He'd anticipated her return and hidden himself in a snowdrift to wait for her, such was his skill, such was his wisdom. Come to think of it, she'd never seen him outside, not once. Somehow, the idea of a person like him wearing a coat felt unnatural, the idea of him not just having a suit as part of his flesh felt wrong. See, a coat implied that he could feel things through his skin, like cold, heat, comfort, discomfort, which meant he had skin, as opposed to just a layer of cloth holding in a bag of machinery, or giant pile of paperwork shaped like a man. A coat meant Mr. Canima had skin. He could feel through his skin. And that just felt... the idea of him being able to feel things, and be affected by them instead of overlooking them as irrelevant details important only to lesser beings, made her think that maybe he could feel other things. And that was a horrifying prospect. That meant he could... feel the enjoyment of snuggling in a bed, and that meant she had to imagine him in bed, in nightclothes, and undressing. Worse. She could imagine that if he could feel the cold and be annoyed by it, he could feel... well, Tanner could feel her own undergarments, everyone could, you just ignored it as a general rule. He could probably feel his undergarments. Rustling away. Were they silk? Cotton? Did he select undergarments because of how they felt against his undercarriage? Did Mr. Canima, Erlize officer, think about how this set of drawers rode up uncomfortably?

The point was, the idea of Mr. Canima wearing a coat made it incredibly easy to imagine him naked, and she hated every moment of this, and by extension, her brain, and by extension, herself.

"I spy with my many eyes, something beginning with s."

"Sky."

"No, you idiot, it's snow. Your turn."

She was rocking back and forth. There was something... it reminded Tanner of Marana, actually. The same odd swaying that she did when she was too drunk to sleep, too drunk to remain still. Like she had to move her body back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, simulating... something. Maybe it was a sailor thing, some evolutionary instinct developed for sea travel. Rock back, rock forth, the body thought it was at sea, and this queasiness was just seasickness, the passing of a temporary illness. Easy to get over. Wondered if shanties would have the same effect, in that case. Hm. Doubted it. Not going to sing, either way.

But there was something in her. Something sick. The rocking, the speaking, it seemed to help her in some way... or at least, it kept her focused. Tanner hazarded a smile, and kept going.

"I spy with my little eye-"

A sudden bark, a flash of... irritation? No, no, it was... was something else, like... reminded her of acting in plays. The same overacting instinct that struck when you didn't want to underact, but didn't how to act normally. So you just... went too far, made too broad gestures, hit someone in the face and had to sit backstage trying not to throw up from shame. As one did. Lantha definitely had that look on her. The same look Tanner had seen in the backstage mirror, over and over, while her face turned more and more pale and her forehead prickled with terrified sweat.

Gods, that memory was ghastly... been years since she thought she suppressed it.

And Lantha snapped.

"Your eyes are big, like the rest of you."

"...I spy with my little eye, something beginning with b."

"It's bitch, isn't it. You cow."

The overacting continued. Like... she thought this was how Lantha ought to act. Swearing, being unpleasantly mean. Like she'd done when she compared Tanner to Tenk carrying a maiden to his chambers, or when she threatened Tanner with stringing her over the side of the boat, if she wandered around when the crew were impressionable, liable to see her as a mutant. But that a core to it, this felt... it felt like someone was wearing a party mask. And it unnerved her.

She blinked rapidly.

"No, no, it's buffalo. Like, the... coats. That we're wearing."

The shadowy figure snarled.

"No, you meant bitch. Coward, trying to cover for yourself. In the war, an insult like that would get us to use you as a giant bleeding sandbag. Considered becoming a soldier, big lady?"

Her tone shifted suddenly, becoming almost friendly, if still... deeper and more raspy than it had any right to be.

"No. No I have not."

"Good."

The word was spat, practically divided into four syllables, one for each letter.

And that was all. They waited together in silence, Tanner turned slightly away from Lantha, at the woman's insistence. Didn't like being looked at for too long. Said it made her bones itch - and that made her aware of the new bones she'd grown. Tanner burned with questions. Not just about her mutations, which sounded... grim, but her survival. It was just so... maybe she wasn't the only survivor, but she was the only one to come here. Odd, but... Tanner found it unreasonably difficult to imagine the entire ship being butchered. Not factually, she was willing enough to trust Lantha's account, but in terms of basic imagination. Once she started adding up the dead, the devastation, the mutants involved, her imagination clicked and came to a stop, like a piece of malfunctioning clockwork. Must've been more dead people than she'd ever seen. She could imagine the unique details of... of the night of three mouths, Myunhen's purpling corpse, the governor's caved-in chest, each one exploding with little clues, little hints... but when she drew back her view, tried to imagine dozens of dead, a boat turned into a slaughterhouse, she just... the detail became overwhelming. And the bodies simplified. But she'd known these people, if only by sight in most cases, and simplifying them felt wrong. Mind wouldn't accept it. So the ship became a stinking, festering void in her imagination - the structure failed to collapse, the bodies failed to die, and she just started thinking of the boat being utterly intact (just as it'd been), and the bodies unharmed (just as they'd been)... lying as if asleep. Her mind told her this image was false. But every image she tried to conjure failed, was too unreal, snapped apart... replaced with the equally unbelievable boat of endless sleepers. She mustered the willpower to ask more...

To his credit, Mr. Canima didn't emerge from the snow like some sort of ghost.

Nor did he come to them in a coat. He emerged from a strange angle, not from the gate, presumably through some other means. He slipped through the snow, a shadow upon the pale, wearing only a very slightly thicker suit than usual, thick enough that she couldn't catch the outlines of his vertebrae. Good. Good. Not sure why it was good, but... well. The coat had become a point. He picked his way carefully over, eyes fixed on Tanner, hands behind his back... the lack of hair on his head added to the effect, there was nothing of his that could be ruffled by the wind, nothing at all. A bare head, a clean-shaved face, a tight, short suit... he might as well have been completely unaffected by the world around him. Divorced from its natural functioning. Sersa Bayai followed behind him, his military march seeming oddly ridiculous next to this enormous, clambering tweed-clad spider of a man. Lantha shifted, retreating into herself, and Tanner... removed her buffalo coat, throwing it over. The woman deserved a little extra coverage, and Tanner had borne worse cold in the last few hours alone. A simple grunt of thanks was the only response.

Mr. Canima stopped some distance away, sizing her up. He had a... pole in his hands, with a long metal spike at the end. For a second, Tanner thought he'd brought a spear, but... no, no, he stuck it straight down into the snow, and unfolded a small rectangular leather seat at the top. She'd seen those things being sold for hunters back in Fidelizh, for people who needed chairs at a moment's notice. He perched atop the seat-stick, seeming to barely remove any weight from his feet, such was his rigidity. A part of her thought that if she removed the stick from beneath him with a kick, he'd just... hover there, suspended by willpower alone.

Tanner stepped forwards, forcing her hands to remain clasped in front of her, not tucking them to her side for warmth, as she'd done... gods, less than a day ago. Felt like longer.

Felt like much longer.

Mr. Canima said nothing. Simply observed.

Tanner approached.

"Mr. Canima. It's... good to see you, sir."

He inclined his head very, very slightly, but his tight lips remained sealed.

"I need to talk to you about what happened. The group involved currently has most of my notes, I've committed them to memory and can reproduce them if necessary."

No response. But his eyes continued to gleam very slightly in the noonday light. His lapels twitched very slightly in the breeze - the only uncontrolled movement she'd seen from him thus far, and it reminded her of the flapping of a moth's wings. Subtle. Silent. And for someone with a phobia of moths, deeply fascinating, and deeply unnerving.

Let's say that Tanner, in this metaphor, was the lepidopterophobiac in question.

Slowly, carefully, she explained her findings. The discrepancies. The murders - with some illustrative examples. The bouncers. Her suspicions... she glanced at Sersa Bayai, but Canima made no moves to dismiss him, so she soldiered on. The quotas which were unfulfilled, the corruption in the Colonial Office which led to non-Rekidans being sent up here, skirting around the potential involvement of the governor in such schemes as a way to create a force of door-guards and overseers, how the cartel started to exploit it all. She didn't mention Rekida's past, largely because it was irrelevant to these details. All that Canima needed to know was that the quotas hadn't been met, and non-Rekidans, specifically Nalseri, were sent up. And facilitating, not to mention profiting from this, was the cartel. Led by a man called Vyuli. Based in the cold-houses. They were aware of her suspicions, she wasn't sure if they knew of her survival, but time might very well be short when it came to dealing with them. For a second, she considered being duplicitous. Lantha was standing further away... maybe she couldn't hear. Send Canima off with this knowledge, see what happened, then do the mutant thing... no, no, irresponsible and unreasonable on every single front. A loathsome suggestion. Fit only for bad judges. No, not even a bad judge would do that sort of thing.

And so... well. She summoned Lantha. Gestured for her to approach.

The woman muttered something to herself. Something along the lines of 'here we go'. Possibly

Lantha stopped just before she could be considered a threat to everyone's health. Almost out of scenting range. Almost. Canima sized her up... and immediately seemed tenser, somehow. He hadn't said a word, accepted all of Tanner's like they were humble offerings, rightful tribute, but... this elicited a reaction. Tanner looked between the two, and coughed uncomfortably.

"And... out there, I encountered Lantha. We'd met on a mutant-hunting vessel on the way up here, she says her ship was butchered, and that... well... I'll let her go on."

Bayai's hand was very near his gun once he saw how large Lantha was, how powerful. How clearly unnatural. The sight of her fused fingers was enough to send his moustache into paroxysms of twitching, and his breathing shifted a little - Canima's too. The breathing that you did while in a gas mask, when everything had to go through a filter. They stopped after a few seconds, Bayai obviously irritated at his own loss of control, but...

Anyway.

Mr. Canima spoke for the first time since he'd arrived.

"Honoured judge. Thank you for your information. I would ask you to write this down, ideally as soon as possible. Ideally with copies, to be sent to my office at your first convenience. Your investigations are to be commended, and I'll put together a letter of congratulations as soon as possible. Your order will be made aware of your success."

His words were warm. His voice wasn't. It felt like an automaton trying to imitate the governor's modes of speech, the distant-yet-affectionate gratitude, the feeling of being congratulated by a stern teacher, or a hard-to-please parent. The way Canima did it made her feel like something was crawling up her back.

"And... Ms. Lantha? My condolences for your condition, and that of your colleagues."

Silence for a few long seconds, and a long, laboured breath emerged from the pile of furs.

"...sorry... should've... told you to bring gas masks. Safer. Sorry. Forgot. Head full of wool."

No change in Canima's expression. He kept up with the voice of Canima, and the words of the governor. Sounded like... the vocal equivalent of being talked to by a man wearing another man's skin. Be as pleasant as you like, didn't change your crime of grand theft epidermis.

"The less time you take to give your report to us, the easier it'll be to forgive you, Ms. Lantha. We'll be happy to arrange for a painless end, if that's what you desired by coming here."

"Little... little bit. Hard to hang yourself like this... hard to shoot yourself, too. Keep thinking my body's just going to get back up again, grow an animal brain, keep moving."

"It's been known to happen. Please. Tell me why you insisted on this meeting."

The woman shuddered again.

"Listen, I... I don't have... my mind is slipping. I don't have much left in me. Been... practising this in my head for days. Might not be much use afterwards. Just... soldier-boy, you with the gun and the boots and the moustache. If I go strange, shoot me, won't you? Shoot me in the head, then run before I pick myself back up. Do you understand? I don't know how much of me is left. I've been feeling better today, but that's... well... it's like pregnancy, your hair gets fantastic while you're pregnant, genuinely beautiful, but you're still about to have the most painful experience of your life. Doesn't... change that. I'm having a good hair day. When I start... going in labour, shoot me in the head."

Bayai nodded hesitantly.

"I will certainly try, miss. To the best of my ability."

Lantha shot Tanner a look that seemed to mean something lascivious and... maybe it was just a look. Nothing implied. Just comfort. Tanner forced a smile onto her face.

"Thank you. For what it's worth... thank you for helping me. And thank you for coming here."

"Don't think of me as I am, judge."

Tanner blinked.

"Don't think of me... me as I am, think of... no, I was always grim. Think of something else, then. Think of something else entirely. Think of birds."

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"I'll do my best, miss."

"Say my name. Please. I don't... I might forget it, please say it."

"Ms. Lantha."

"...thank you. Thank you for that. Say it again."

"Lantha."

"Sounds wrong. You sure it wasn't... I think, Ranthan?"

"No, no, Lantha."

"...Lantha. Right. If that's... I'll take your word for it. And you two - please forgive me. I don't... anyway. Shoot me if I go strange. And I'm sorry."

And without further ado, she removed the furs. Tossing the cape over to Tanner, who caught it reluctantly in her outstretched arms. It oozed between them, but she smelled no contamination, and slung it back over her shoulders. The other furs were next. Pulled free and allowed to fall to the ground. Leaving the creature beneath. The creature that had grown inside Lantha's flesh, usurping it one organ at a time, until there was very little Lantha left... and what was left was vestigial, a remnant of an earlier stage. A mistake that would soon be corrected, once the contamination advanced further.

She was... twisted. Tanner took several steps back instinctually, old terrors of mutants flaring inside her.

What was human about her existed only in the general features. Two arms. Two legs. A head. There, resemblances began to cease. Her legs were practically plated with elaborate spirals of chitin and scales, intermingling and reinforcing one another, giving way to feet which... no, nothing human about them. They'd divided into long, slender, powerful digits, like the pseudopods of starfish, planted firmly into the ground and finely distributing her weight. Her waist was heavy with cilia and antennae, growing out in a thick nest. She wore nothing below the pelts, but there was no concern over modesty - her crotch was completely smooth, mutants being completely sterile. Above the waist, her torso was... it had too many ribs. Pushing far too close to the surface of the skin, nearly ripping the half-translucent material, showing that they formed a near-complete set of armour. Reminded her of a centipede's legs. The same uncanny smoothness of other mutants, the same feeling of her being a creature in the process of being created, her ribs twisting in a near-liquid fashion as she moved, her spine, seeming ready to undulate rather than perform any natural motion. Her eyes were human... but all around them were tiny black orbs, spider-like, emotionless, animal. Her hair was alive, laced with bright white strands that... glowed, very faintly. Feelers, antennae, something more than human. And her face was mottled, scarred, as were her arms, though these seemed comparatively less affected than the rest of her... beyond the long-standing mutations of her long, ugly career.

Tanner stared.

The idea that a human mind could still endure in her was... near unbelievable. If that mangled mouth, filled with needle-sharp teeth that curved inwards, fit to trap anything that was unlucky enough to fall inside... if that mouth hadn't spoken, she'd have responded to this creature by running away as fast as possible. Her every cell demanded it.

How long ago had this catastrophe happened?

How long had Lantha had to change? This couldn't be accidental, it couldn't be...

She turned to glance at the others... Bayai was, as expected, very nervous, but holding it down under a layer of professionalism and expertise. Canima...

Canima's eyes were wide.

His mouth was very, very slightly open.

And the leather seat underneath him strained slightly as, for seemingly the first time, he actually settled his full weight into it.

To Tanner, this was like one of the pillars of the world had just shifted.

He looked almost scared.

What did he see that she didn't?

And Lantha began to talk. A distressingly human voice rumbling out of a completely inhuman throat. And in this little dip in the earth, sheltered from the prying eyes of others... Tanner listened to her story.

"We were... we'd just left that nameless little hunk of dirt you people call a settlement. Were going further upriver, trying to find more mutants. Hunting was getting poor, these years. Dumb ones were dying, smart ones were staying away. Figured, soon enough, we'd be up in airships, raining fire from the sky, like we did in the war. But for now... mop-up. No way they'd get us to bring back bodies, not mutants, so we'd be paid the same regardless of how many we burned up. For a few days, it was normal. River was sluggish, but that was fine, we'd dealt with that. If things were too icy for us to move, we just... threw down an anchor, lit up the fires, and turned into a fortress. Done it for years. Winter's a good time, we get proper mutants, not just animals figuring out their new hunger. Had time to refine. All the animals are hibernating, so they're staying out of the way. Just us and the freaks."

Lantha paused, swallowing. Her voice became eerily smooth when she talked about the boat. Wondered if she'd been rehearsing this for a while. Tanner hadn't sat down since the steam fissure, and she didn't feel the urge to now, tension keeping her utterly upright, the same species of nervousness as Bayai.

"The ice came a little faster, river got a little more sluggish, captain ordered us to do just that. Had provisions for the winter, a theurgic engine to warm us up, and all the flamethrower fuel we needed. Settled down. Sent out a few of the girls with a sled to pull, had some bait. Gotta guide them in, have bait, leave chains of it back to the ship... get a craze going. Give them some samples. Once we got started, once we had bodies, we could string them up, start the chain reaction. Team was out longer than we thought. Not unusual, though. They could be setting up chains of bait, could be waiting for a few mutants to come along so they could blast them, augment the bait a little more. Conditions like these, you wanted something big, something to lure in the big boys. Figured they were doing that. Done it before. Been fine then, seemed fine now. We waited for them to come back..."

A pause.

"Of course they didn't. You know how this story works, don't you. They didn't come back. Hope they died. Be merciful. Still. Once we got nervous, we just went to battle stations. Hunker down and wait for any signs. Couple of days, nothing but the cold and the dark. Ship was iced in now, no way of moving it. Didn't want to, too early. Best way to melt the ice, get some leverage, burn up mutant after mutant, loosen the river, then grind through it all. Anyway. Anyway. We... waited. After a few days of nothing, we decided to set up bait. Big bait. Stuff we store below decks, seal it up to stop it stinking. Dangerous, wasteful, but we wanted to be sure. Set it up, scent was in the air, gas masks on... nothing. Bait went dry before we had a single mutant coming to us. But one did come. Owl-thing. Told the judge about it. Already forgetting parts. Mind's going. It came, sliced people up, destroyed the engine. No more getting out, no more heat. Things were already bad. Well. For the men. For the young ones. Us... we were old, ready to die. Me, had one good season left, then I was going to the asylum. If I didn't shoot myself first. But that mutant... it was clever. It targeted us, it knew what to go for, it soaked up damage and ate almost nothing before it escaped. Must've injured it, but it didn't care, it just... did a job. Mutant, doing a job, accepting an injury, getting nothing out of it but us immobilised so the others could kill us easier."

Canima shivered. Tanner stared at him for a few moments, before her gaze flickered back to the towering mutant woman, now moving back and forth, her five-pronged feet-things moving silently over the snow. No wonder she'd left so few imprints.

"Then the others came. These weren't... weren't idiots. They didn't send idiots. Knew we were good. These... these were like the mutants in the war. The smart ones. You're old, mister. You remember the war."

No response.

"You definitely remember, got the look in you. Sorry for being crass, sir, mister, whatever. Dying. Feel like being a cunt. Sorry. Very sorry. Don't... fuck, shouldn't... when you think of me afterwards, ignore the curses, please. Your memory of me is... I've not got much else besides it. Not got much memory of my own. The Lantha you knew, pretend she was polite and beautiful. Please. So... you know how it was. The smart ones, they were alright if they were in a horde. All pressed up together, trying to get to us... surrounded by idiots... you could fight that. You'd lose, most likely. But you could try. Time went on, we got pretty good at it. Stopped losing so much. The idiots, they were bad. The smart ones, they were worse. Put them together, averaged a little. Idiots improved. Smart ones declined. Big freaks had to look after the stunted freaks. But you get the smart guys alone... like in the war, working together. Not killing each other. Not even looking at each other, didn't need to, weren't worried about the others stabbing them in the back once they were wounded. Ignoring their hunger. Those were the worst. Always the worst. They planned, they didn't babysit anything, they just did their damn jobs and did them well."

She sighed, a low whine emerging from a nose that... seemed to be liquefying a little, losing its bone structure, the body started to smell through other organs, through the skin itself, through the nest of cilia around the waist...

"Same here. Smart ones. In the dark. The owl was the first. Then the others came. Quiet as death. Didn't see them until they were too close. We lit up the night with fire... didn't do anything. There was... was a bear-thing, body was all bloated, pierce it, full of these pale white spiders... the skin was made of them too, just dead ones, meshed together, no scent. Spilled out, ate people alive. Burn it, the spiders just... they wouldn't burn easily, not like you'd think, the paleness, think it might've been bones, metal... enough got through. Didn't go for killing you, though. Just... broke your filters, chewed your fuel lines. Stopped you resisting. Wasp-things with poison paralysed us, locked us down so the others could take us away. Had one of those walking barrows, you remember, from the war? Tall bastards, just this... frogspawn sludge, all squirming with things that were almost tadpoles, squirmed into mass graves and used the bones like armour... used humans like lures. Been years since I saw one. Then saw it squirming down one of their... their throats, filled up his stomach, killed him in seconds, turned him into one of them. Burned it, thing just exploded, coated all of us, melted our weapons... they weren't going for killing us, not if they could help it. Wanted us alive."

Like... like in the war. As Bayai had said. Mutants with cages grown out of their backs. Living sacs of contamination for the pages to plug into. Devoured, digested, refined, swirled around... excreted as something vicious and mindless and perfect.

Like in the war.

"I was... I didn't escape. No-one escaped. If you jumped from the boat, and some of us did, the river wasn't a river. Something pale in the water. Clinging under the ice. Just saw people disappearing under the surface, never saw what it was, just the paleness in the moon. Looked like milk, or silver, or... something like that. Something pale and shiny. Maybe it was always following us. Maybe it was watching us when we slept. Learning our scents. Learning everything."

She stared ahead sightlessly, eerily human eyes watering with tears that they no longer needed. Mutants had better eyes, better bodies - no need for things like tears to wash them clean.

"They took us. Took all of us, all of us that were alive. Even the dead, come to... to think about it, but they didn't... hard to see them, they just ate those, probably threw them back up to add to the meat pits. We just... they dragged us not too far, knew we'd find ways to kill ourselves, deny them satisfaction. If anyone tried to escape, just paralysed them. One of the girls... tried to run, tried, got far, they just put a stinger through her spine. Couldn't walk. Could barely breathe. Had a tube down her throat to keep her from swallowing her tongue. Took us. Took us to this... this place, place with pits of mass for working. The delicate ones did the jobs. Like the war. Just like the war. Organised. Had jobs. Had roles. Didn't fight, didn't kill. Organised. The place was... it was far-gone. Contamination everywhere. Plants were too tall, too hungry. Saw bones where animals had wandered in. Willows with arteries instead of leaves. Hungry arteries. Grass that was never in the same place after you'd looked away for too long. Ina trees, the ones with cages, they walked, sometimes. Kept animals in their bark, kept them alive for parts, heard them squealing sometimes. The trees, they just... they wept honey. Lured in insects, insects got eaten. Had spawn made of remnants and off-cuts, living cows that kept body parts alive. Grunting things, no eyes, no mouths, just... few limbs, rolling around the place, grunting, grunting... nothing ever slept. The meat pits were alive, too, had something inside keeping it fresh, saw it coming out sometimes, saw it slithering. Bigger than a train. Everything was alive. Everything was. The cage we were in dripped stomach acid down the sides, sometimes. We saw the metal braces that stopped it from snapping its jaws on us. The ground we walked on wept pus and oil, sighed when we stepped on it too hard. Our bindings couldn't be loosened - when we tried, they just slithered tighter. Cutting them just meant the binding climbed up, spread out. Got too uppity, it'd just go further. Web you up, cocoon you like a spider with a fly. And then they... worked on us."

Canima leaned forwards, his mouth twitching slightly.

"They... converted you?"

"Best they could. Started work. Saved the head. Didn't want us too stupid, nothing uncontrolled. Would... would paralyse us, lock off circulation to a limb, stop us carrying the contamination anywhere they didn't want. Used... used bones to do it, locked the limbs shut, then mutated them. Piece by piece by piece. Tourniquet, mutation, release. Tourniquet, mutation, release. Over and over. Remember some of it. Passing out... not good, if you passed out, you woke up to find the changes. Lost my... legs that way. Passed out. Came to, I was like this. Waist down. But waist up... same as ever. That was... that made me... I just…"

She paused, and sank into the snow, breathing heavily through her near-ruined nose, eyes widening as she did so.

"I... I'm sorry, my mind is... I'm slipping, I've not got... got much left, please. This is all I have left. Can feel... it's like something's been scooped out of me. I talk, my memories fade, please, I can't... what did I just say?"

Canima spoke gently. And for once, there was something genuine in his voice.

"You were talking about how you woke up with your legs... altered, I believe."

"...was I?"

"Yes, Ms. Lantha. You were."

"...what was... was the captain's name?"

Tanner spoke quietly.

"Kralana. Captain Kralana."

"...Mahar Jovan, she was... no, she was Krodaw, she was of the... the sane ones, the ones that ran away, she Krodaw... what's the word?"

"Krodawn"

"...she was Krodawn. Captain Kralana was Krodawn. She... that's all I have. Captain's face. Can't remmeber it. Not my husband. Not her."

A shiver.

"I almost want the underground rivers to still have those. I don't have time to tell... don't have memories, neither. Want the rivers to have them. Want them to keep them. But... no, all gone. All gone. Die with me. My husband's name was..."

She blinked.

"I don't know his name. Just his hands. Strong. One finger missing. Accident. Strong hands. Were they... they his?"

Lantha looked up.

"What's my name?"

Tanner spoke again.

"Lantha."

"Lantha. Lantha."

She slapped her forehead aggressively.

"Lantha. Lantha. Lantha."

A deep breath. A few long seconds of agonising silence.

"I'm sorry. Everything was alive. The cages were just animals with muzzles over their teeth. Our bindings were just defanged leeches. Our graveyard was an armoury. The ground drank our contamination. The air swam with spores that drank everything the ground missed. Everything hissed, and oozed, and groaned, and... pulsed. The dirt leaked sweat. The trees wept to keep their prey moist and fresh. They operated with teeth sharper than scalpels. They... they make the world live, mutants. They give life to it all. Hungry grass. Hungry trees. Wonder if... if they just make the world hungry, and the world catches up. Felt hungry. Felt hungrier than..."

She shivered.

"They just took us apart like dolls. Put us back together. The vein-trees, if you... if they wanted something intense, they... they'd cut you up, put your head in the tree, the tree kept alive, kept you breathing, and then they'd... they'd just staple you back to your body with tiny leech-mutants, bound you up, mutated inwards. Saw... saw iron things, mosquito-things, size of carts, drilling into the earth. Looking for more contamination. Saw things with tongues moving around, lapping all the waste contamination up, storing it for later. Saw it. Saw all of it. After a while... couldn't even sleep. But they left... left my brain for last, don't know why, couldn't... couldn't tell. The other girls..."

She hesitated, choking her words out.

"When they got to the brains, when they held them upside down and dipped them into these pits, they just... there was no madness. None. They just changed. Wanted to... to listen to whatever the mutants did. Like the war. Gods, it was like... like the war all over again. The pits. The living cages. The hungry trees. World turning alive. Air filling with spores size of your fist, drifting around with big jellyfish fronds hanging underneath, eating little specks of contamination... nothing wasted. Saw them dismantling aprt of the camp, once. Didn't really dismantle. Just cannibalised. Ate the mutants ailve, swallowed chunks of soil, devoured the trees, then moved. Left behind acid-melted chunks, stuff they didn't need. You remember them. Midden cairns. Like... melting stone, hard and dark and burned. Piles where they were finished."

Her head descended into her malformed hands, and for a second she remained there... no tears. Her eyes weren't gleaming now. Given up the last of their moisture - the last reserves in her entire body, reserves that were never designed to be filled again.

"Got away. They didn't do my brain till last. Could... the cages, if you're mutated, mostly, they... get conflicted, don't know what to do with you sometimes. I got lucky, cage got sloppy, let me out, I ran, gods, I... I didn't just run, I stole one of their... their transport-forms. You know. Brain-dead mutants, scooped out their skulls, left behind... slots for their bodies. One I had... was like a horse, a cow, a tangle of weeds... moved, though. Moved when my muscles... j-joined with it. Could feel it. I wasn't human, then. Just a human brain. Ran. Ran far. They didn't chase. Didn't want me back. Thought... thought someone was after me, no, just wanted the steed back. When I abandoned it, the thing took it, then left. I was... I was nothing, not special. Had none of their tools in me. Just... a starting point. Ran. Ran so far. Came here. Couldn't... you'd burn me on sight. Needed to find someone. Hid in the snow. Hid... I don't... sometimes I... don't remember days."

She looked up, staring at the three of them.

"But they... I could feel it. I could feel what they wanted. This... thing, pressing around my skull like a vice, pressing tighter, always tighter, like a crown filled with needles, coming closer... marching up my spine, marching from bottom to top. This thing. I can't even... it's like getting snow showed in your ears, it's like waking up at four in the morning in a humid jungle night, it's like... you ever been around on a cold day, felt the cold turning your nails to ice? Making your nails burn the skin underneath? It was like that. For my skull. Burning with cold and heat and everything else. Could feel what they wanted. Just this... this feeling. West. Come west. Come to this place. Saw images. Saw... no, no, not images, not images, just... a kind of... I saw the sun, saw it rising in the east, and in my gut, I knew, run away from the sun. Run away, and you're going in the right direction. Only time I felt at peace, when I ran from the sun. When I came here, I smelled it, I smelled the markers, I smelled the things they left. Signals. Come here. Come and eat. They're coming for you. I'm sorry I couldn't stop them. So sorry. They're coming, all of them. Want your bodies. Your meat. Your bones. Your minds. Your city. Want it all. Will come, eat, eat, never stop, not until you're all gone, then they'll move. It's like... like the war. Like the war again. Please, just... I'm sorry I was late."

Her throat twitched into a strange, painful-looking spasm... an attempt to sob, maybe. Failed. The muscles were wrong. The body was no longer adapted for showing emotion in such a fashion.

"Please. I'm sorry. That's... that's all I have. My memories are dying. They're coming. They're coming. Just... if you can stop them, if you can stop a single one, do it, but... but die before they take you. Leave a bullet. I should've."

She paused.

"...can... you... you, big lady, what's your... your name?"

"Tanner. Tanner Magg."

"...forgot. Forgot. You were... a... no. Can't... Tan. Tan-ner. Tan... no. Just... T... big lady."

A pause.

"...you were on the boat. Can't... nothing else. Someone... no."

She stopped. Silence reigned. Sagged. Rubbed a fused-finger hand over her face, and her lips moved like she was praying to something... lips moving with muscle memory alone, forming words her mind couldn't quite put together. How much of her was habit? Tanner wanted to go forwards, to... she didn't know, she didn't know. And Canima... what was Canima doing? He would know, he would... he leaned forwards, and left his chair for the first time, hunching gargoyle-like over Lantha, ignoring any risk of contamination. His lips had tiny drops at foam at the corner, like he was going rabid, like something was emanating from the very depths of his gut.

"They commanded you. You're saying this to me - they commanded you, are you certain?"

"Flee the sun. Come west. Eat it all. There are scents in the air."

"...they called it war-perfume in the old days, I believe."

Lantha's voice was dead, exhausted. Empty. Like Tal-Sar when he confessed. Confession was a draining, a lancing of the wound, a leeching of pus. But what happened when there wasn't much left? When the infection had marched up so much that... draining didn't mean nothing, it was worse, it meant everything. Everything slithering away, leaving a hollow skin, a decaying mind, a monstrous body. Orders, echoing over and over like fever-dreams on a summer night.

"The scents say to hunt. Weak, right now. Will get stronger. Promise they will."

"When."

She looked up blearily.

"Hm?"

"When. When will they come."

"Soon."

"How soon?"

"Don't... don't... no, no, they're here. Already here. The scouts. The first. They've been here for a long, long time... signs, must've been... signs..."

Silence again. Tanner had seen the signs. A cat with human teeth. A suspicious crash. A destroyed postal coach. Shadows in the night sky. Unusual contamination. Mutants fleeing the coming tide, maybe terrified of being controlled, maybe scouts for the advancing forces, maybe just... scavengers, ready to see the slaughter and exploit it. Signs. Always signs. She gritted her teeth, but from the outside it was barely visible. Lantha glanced her way regardless, ears twitching. She'd heard the grinding. The tiny, subtle sound...

Mutated into something huge and... superior, in so many ways.

Tanner looked away.

Couldn't hold that gaze for more than a few moments. Not with the living, sad eyes, and the dead, animal eyes contrasting each other. Almost thought she could see the latter infecting the former, second by second by second...

She murmured.

"Thank you. Thank you for this... information. I'll remember all of it. I promise."

Should've been writing. Should've been writing.

"...thank you. Big lady."

The woman's voice was quiet.

And suddenly, a small smile split her malformed face.

"...can almost remember him. Just a bit. He took me to the king's gardens in Apo when he proposed. Sandbags everywhere. Ready for the war. But he... he made it shine... I can remember his smile. His hands, and his smile... sometimes his voice. Called me beautiful. Called me the finest woman in all of Apo. Called me someone who shouldn't wear a suckling veil, because to conceal my face would be an insult to everyone around me. Said my daughter, my son should be proud to see me from the moment they were born, no concealment..."

A pause.

"Burn me. Burn me. Burn me before I lose him again. Can feel him slipping. Hurry."

Bayai moved. Looked uncertainly between the two. Unsure of what to do.

Canima nodded quietly. And patted the mutant on the shoulder.

"You did well. You'll be honoured."

"...he called me beautiful..."

Her fingers clutched for a long-gone ring around her neck. Forming the invisible shape of the thing...

And Bayai's gun clicked.

And for all the bleak openness of the plains...

It seemed to echo louder than Lyur's gun ever had.

Tanner refused to shut her eyes when it happened.