"Log, PF plus eighteen Tellurian days. Lieutenant Seward reporting in.

"We've purified some of the upstream water. Jacob has first claim on it because of the injuries. And because I say so.

"And because he says so. He says if anybody's going to get poisoned by this stuff, it should be him.

"But he's doing better, I think. He was downright frisky last night. I mean, we had to be careful, because of his burns, but...

"It was really nice."

--Recording recovered from Site Resh, reconstructed 1887 CE (restricted access)

----

14 Rising Withering, 1886 CE

The Streets, Acerbia

If Dorsin didn't know better, he'd think that the failure of the enormous mycoprotein vats was part of a Nxtlu plot.

But there were no Nxtlu in Acerbia, not now that Ductrix Eztli was gone. With Dorsin's daughter.

Who should have been maintaining the vats in the first place.

And Oralie was gone as well, though the regency was supposed to belong to her.

Dorsin swallowed a burst of anger, lest he take out his irritation on the Generosus harassing him.

"All we wish to know," Shayataki Takahashi beside him said, "is whether you intend to break your Gens's promises to the rest of us the way you broke them to Gens Nxtlu."

Dorsin wanted to punch the man in his serene scholarly visage. "I told you, I did not eject Ductrix Eztli from Acerbia. She left of her own accord."

Ductrix Ramona looked back at Dorsin questioningly. He'd been scowling. Lenaa coughed deliberately. Dorsin smoothed his face and nodded.

Captain Cornartis glanced back, but was too much a professional to allow Dorsin's conversation to distract him from his crowd-control duties. Dorsin would have to reward him and his militia.

A purple-blooded engineer grunted and forgebone clanked as he pulled a massive filter free from one of the mycoprotein vats.

"That is not what our informants tell us," the Takahashi Generosus said.

"Perhaps you should find less gullible informants. I am telling you, my agreement with Nxtlu stands, as does my agreement with you."

Dorsin stepped away from the other Generosus before his temper got the better of him. He didn't often come to the cramped lower-class hives of Acerbia. Even though they left space between him and them, the poorer citizens possessed an invisible mass, a gravity that tugged them toward Dorsin. They were desperate to bypass Cornartis's men, to cross that space.

Not to be near Dorsin. For the vats, which had been failing sporadically for weeks.

The crowd was dirty and desperate for food. And who could blame them? You could take the disenfranchised out of the Chasm, but you couldn't take the Chasm out of the disenfranchised. If Oralie had been here, she would be able to propose a dozen programs for reintegrating these people into Acerbian life.

Dorsin wasn't used to dealing with so many destitute. Thorssel had never been so troubled.

"Dux Dorsin!" somebody shouted. Dorsin scanned the crowd. "Dux Dorsin."

He wasn't Dux, and the error made him grind his teeth. Odd. That sort of thing never would have troubled him before. "I am here," he said.

He waved his Wolfmen and Cornartis's militia back as the crowd parted. Bones in a sack of filthy skin approached. In the skeletal man's arms was a whimpering babe. "If it please you, my Eri," the man said, coming to the edge of the crowd and then stopping as if uncertain. He held out the child. "Little Helen. She's... and her mother isn't... I can't... I can't feed her."

All irritation at the man's lack of proper address vanished. "Give her to me."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The child had so wasted it couldn't even cry out. How terrible. There was much Dorsin couldn't do, but this he could fix. "Ramona, please feed the child."

Ramona took the girl and hurried into a room set into the side of the vats. The soldiers closed the door behind her. Ramona's firstborn was only a few months old, and if she needed even more milk the Symbiont would be able to assist in its production.

"But my Helen," protested the beggar, clutching after the child until Ramona disappeared.

"I will have her returned to you in short order. Stay here after the vats are repaired," Dorsin ordered. "You will have food soon, and I will dispatch someone to see to your more permanent needs."

As if on cue, the head engineer announced, "All repairs are completed, Princeps."

It would take a few hours for the fungi to recover, purge the sickness from the bad filters, and spread again throughout the vats. That didn't matter to the crowd. As if the engineer's words had broken a pheromonal hold on them, the disenfranchised surged toward the vats, flowing past Dorsin.

Dorsin's gorge rose. Lenaa's hand fell on his shoulder. He almost slapped it away, then felt sheepish.

Why bother trying to correct the people? They would realize soon enough that the vats needed time to recover--

And here was the meddlesome Takahashi moving against the flow through the crowd. "One wonders, Princeps, why your daughter is not here instead."

"Does one?"

If the Takahashi was upset at Dorsin's tone, he didn't show it. "There are those who say you deposed her."

"Are there?" Dorsin drew up to his full height as people jostled around them. "Perhaps 'one' and 'those' should come and speak to me plainly, rather than engaging in offhanded insinuations of filicide."

"Filicide?" The Takahashi frowned. "I did not--"

"Ductrix Senrii is on an assay," Dorsin said. "And this audience is over."

The Takahashi stared at him for a long moment, then nodded. "We will be watching." He glided off into the crowd.

That vile, wretched man, implying crimes that Dorsin would never even countenance--

Dorsin, my love. Oralie's voice blasted Dorsin's consciousness out of Acerbia. The world vanished, leaving him in a non-space, devoid of matter.

Dorsin screamed silently, feeling his head come apart.

Oralie's voice rang in his open consciousness. Dorsin, they are coming for me. And your daughter is in terrible danger.

"Oralie?" Dorsin said weakly. "Why--how are you doing this?"

"What is it, Dorsin?" Lenaa asked from far away.

Oralie had shared Synapsis with Rosabella as long as Dorsin had known her, but he had never been a part of it. However, Synapsis was filtered. This was emptiness filled with the noise of Oralie's voice. Raw, Dorsin realized. This is raw Synapsis. But how?

The High laid a trap for me beneath the Palace of Ascension, my love.

The High, the Palace--the Sodality had his wife. The thought seemed to take an eternity in the emptiness as a dozen emotions tore through him. Disbelief; doubt; madness?

No. Oralie had known Synapsis without a Tool for decades. For her, this was nothing new.

Dorsin had to be as strong as his wife was, and right now, his wife needed him. "I'll come, Oralie. I'll get you out. Only tell me what to do."

No. Oralie's voice was urgent. Our daughter, Dorsin. Senrii found Thiyyatt. She said something about the "Golden City." She needs your help, Dorsin. She needs you.

Senrii. Infuriating Senrii. Dorsin's infuriating daughter.

Dorsin's daughter.

Our daughter, my love, Oralie said. They are here and Tvorh's not here to help. I must leave before they catch me. I love you. If I never have the chance to tell you again--

"--Oralie!"

I love you. Oralie's voice grew wan. As does she.

"Oralie," Dorsin screamed into the street. Suddenly able to move again, he flung himself to his feet.

The people around him shied back, looking terrified. They had not expected their Princeps to faint in their midst, nor to rise screaming like a madman.

He was sweating. He was drenched.

"Dorsin?" Lenaa's even eyes were full of concern as she helped him up. Cornartis was nearby as well, holding a security perimeter around Dorsin; with the vats fixed, only the princeps needed protecting any longer.

"Oralie," he blurted. "She spoke to me. Somehow..."

Somehow...

"Your wife?" Lenaa's eyes narrowed. She didn't know about Oralie's secret communications route with Rosabella. A route she'd opened to Dorsin, apparently.

"Senrii," Dorsin said.

Senrii--

Oralie.

His daughter--

His wife!

Dorsin took a deep breath and gently pressed his sister away "Senrii is in trouble," he said.

"But--"

"In Vallus, someplace called the Golden City. She needs our help." But how? The interior of Vallus was unmapped, and Dorsin knew of no such place.

"Excuse me, Princeps." Captain Cornartis moved away from his men, in toward Dorsin. "Did you say the Golden City?"

Dorsin nodded. "Why do you ask?"

Cornartis glanced at the profile of the Thunderhammer Cannon towering above the skyline. Then he turned back to Dorsin. "Because I might be able to help."

For a price, surely. But if the man was telling the truth, he could name it, and Dorsin would gladly pay it.