“The Firestarter strand is rather peculiar. To start, it has an affinity for seeds as their hosts, most often of the trees found in the forests surrounding Vesh’Foktle. It can also sense high heat, sudden changes in velocity, and, if you can believe it, its detonator’s intent. Most perplexing of all, the strand completely defies Loxdan’s Law of Conversation of Mass. Indeed, there are still many mysteries in medical zoology.”
—Professor James Anthem as a guest speaker to the students of DB-302: Intermediate Chemical Ordnance at Galt Alese.
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The war room shifts upon the hold of its hanging chains, a spherical space above the alcazar’s grounds, the structures below as tiny as dioramas covered by burgeoning plants. Maligned abominations dangle along slits on the walls, reconstructed using authentic bones as if they are something to be admired.
“Your sister harpooned that thing.” Yosalus Ingram nods to the largest of the skeletons nailed to the wall, as wide as two horses and as tall as seven. “There are many dangers out there in the raw.”
“You don’t need to tell me that.” Genebrict has probably spent more days in the raw ground during his five years in the Basket than Ingram will in his entire life. “Did she spend a lot of time here?” Also, how did she know where to aim the harpoon?
“The few moments she was in the alcazar, yes.”
Everyone still talks about you, sister.
This comes as no surprise, for the room overlooks Kaskit’s bay, the clear blue of the artificial lake smacking right against the putrid green brambles of raw ground on the other side of the enclosure, which is starting to harden. It’s difficult to believe both sides of the enclosure were ever full of water.
Delah’s been quiet since Stalt felt her breath on his ear when leaving the cenotaph. A defector to the Chant? A woman willingly spreading a strand to her brother? There is no way in the Hells Delah did any of that. Once Stalt has the answers, he’ll ride another gondola to the Basket, use the proceeds from his KSP status to buy a premium suite in the colony’s upper echelons, hire a team of foragers to do his work and live out his days in comfort while remembering his sister the way she ought to be.
The war room’s two enormous wooden doors open to admit a line of alcazar elites wielding rifles or polearms, forty dividing along the room’s perimeter. Weaving into the bunch, easy to miss at first, is a familiar face.
Stalt almost shoots out of his chair. “Bolen?”
“Genebrict.” The man nods, looking just as surprised as Stalt feels. “You’re a face I never thought to see again.” The militia captain takes a seat next to him. “Funny where life throws you, isn’t it?” Behind Bolen follow some of his youthful contingent—late adolescents who fled to the Basket for a life free from the chapter houses, underestimating the hard labor awaiting them. The Flung must have also brought them here.
Stalt’s not exactly glad to see the militia captain, but there are worse people he could be sitting next to. “Why in the Hells are you here?”
“Could ask you the same thing, old man.”
He could indeed—he could ask a great many things, and still, Stalt wouldn’t have the answers.
As they converse, Stalt notices a collage of paintings above the entrance. Glossing over the depictions of gondola battles and lines of Emergence Corps riflemen cracking volleys against hordes of maligned, he focuses on the image at the top of the arrangement.
“From her collection,” whispers Ingram. “I was not lying.”
Lies can assault you from many angles, Stalt surmises, as he traces the brush strokes approximating a gondola docked into its bullwheel terminal. Its crew of silhouettes unload cargo and throw ropes, and in the background, two figures face each other at the prowl of the vessel. Delah is one of them, her long brown hair catching on the breeze.
Perfume wafts in from somewhere far off. Stalt has never met a woman so tough and never will again. He imagines her inspecting Flung gondolas leaving their stations, calculating in war rooms, and balancing atop the ropeway cord at midnight with that smug smile she was never humbled out of, especially not when she made fleet admiral.
The second person on the gondola’s prowl is a man and a victim of the painter’s creative liberties. He is taller than Stalt, bulkier, his unkempt silver hair caught in a gust. Stalt runs his fingers through that tangled hair daily to remind him that pain is a sign he still possesses his humanity.
“He’s more handsome than I am.” Stalt tries to pry humor out of the moment, but no one laughs. How long have they all known?
How long have you kept me in the dark, Deh?
“You wouldn’t have been the first sibling pair in the military,” says Ingram, answering an unasked question. “You can guess what the name of that painting is.”
Of course, he can. It’s all on their tongues: The Twin Admirals.
The doors open again, but no human stands on the other side this time. It is a colossal shape, casting a shadow over the table. Stalt can look nowhere else as the hulking creature saunters in, each footstep rattling the chandeliers. It’s a rhinoceros beetle, bipedal, with an array of weapon holsters clamped to a golden belt at its waist. Four of its six arms are curled in fists, the other two cradling a figure as easily as if it is a doll.
The beetle sets this figure down on the long table, and Stalt blinks as if to dispel an apparition. The person has the outward appearance of a girl who is eight or nine years old, her skin gleaming, long hair a sharp silver shade, but despite her age, her rigid posture seems to carry a great weight. Her eyes are a milky white, but they fix on people and at things around the room, and it’s then Stalt knows she must see everything they do and perhaps more.
The Second Signature is the subject of stories of a young girl who had signed the truce between man and maligned and, by doing so, chained herself to agelessness. To hear the tale, to see it drawn, to see it portrayed on stage never once came close to gazing upon the oddity itself, and it is an oddity, even though no one else stirs. Dare they stir at anything this girl says?
“I see some of you are unacquainted,” says the Second Signature, her voice devoid of childish warmth. She steps aside to give the stage to the beetle. “My Entrusted, Vakye, handed down to me by Sacramount itself. He is the protector clause in the Decree made manifest. My guardian. At least, he is one of them.”
The great beetle bows its head, scanning the room and setting its eyes on Stalt for a moment longer than everyone else.
Stalt wants to ask a question until another woman stumbles in, clearly not caring about being late. She sits at the table’s far side with her arms crossed, her expression welcoming disdain as a Chant acolyte would welcome the maligned. A flick of annoyance passes when she sees the Second Signature standing on the table as if this woman will rip the girl’s throat out. She seems brutish enough to follow through with it, though why an incubator would even need to be here is beyond him.
As she catches Stalt inspecting her, she mouths something. “Raw man.”
The words cut straight down to the fabric that defines Genebrict, the same that withers daily. He thinks about shouting back, throwing his boot at her, and seeing if he’s maligned enough for the Decree to still his hand. When Stalt finishes this train of thought, the woman’s focus has turned elsewhere.
Only after Stalt finishes examining the woman does he find the Second Signature looking straight at him with eyes of a deep, blank white like two puddles of milk. Everyone has stopped talking. “You’re a long way from the Basket, Genebrict Stalt.” She smiles. “Forgive all this rigmarole.”
Stalt can only nod under the guise of those leering, contained moons embedded in her face. “I still don’t know why I’m here.” Ingram had told him of Delah’s defection, but what does this have to do with the Second Signature?
“You will soon. Everyone! Take your seats.” The girl rises upon bare feet, leaving wrinkles on the open maps beneath her as she finds a spot at the table’s center and sits again. “Gauss? Start from the beginning, please. For our guests.”
Bolen leans close to Stalt, aiming his chin at the portly middle-aged officer who is the focus of the girl’s attention. “Surprised that bastard hasn’t eaten himself to death.”
“Who?” Stalt asks.
“Lieutenant General Herbert Gauss. They called him Cackles back when I was in the Corps. They probably still do.”
That Bolen once served for Kaskit’s infantry is news to Stalt. “Why Cackles, though?” The general seems normal, not a mutation about him, save for his gut pressing against the table.
Gauss chooses that moment to grin wide and laugh to himself as if instructed to. It’s an unnerving sound and matches those of hyenas and chittering foxes. The general mutters something to himself while moving his fingers to solve a toy puzzle no one else can see. He seems to devote all his attention to the task, unaware that the Second Signature addressed him directly.
“What’s his problem?” Stalt asks the room. He guesses Gauss witnessed some atrocity on the battlefield that broke his psyche and pushed him over the figurative edge. Maybe he’s the kind that cries himself to sleep to fill the darkness with sound.
The general raises his head and stops laughing. “Whatever my problem is, it must be lighter than yours.” He sniffs, turning his attention away from his imaginary puzzle and making an obvious inspection of Stalt. “Tell me, when was the last time you boiled your water, raw man?”
“Not sure he knows how,” pipes up one of Gauss’s officers. “Are those outers on his chest?”
Disgusting, says their gazes—says the stares of every person in the room save for Bolen, who is used to being around men as far gone as Genebrict.
Stalt finds the closest drinking glass. He weighs it in his hands a few moments before hurling it straight at Gauss. His officer intercepts it on the way to his general’s head, smashing it with a fist. The other officers stir, rising. The one who broke the glass pulls out a flintlock pistol and aims it at Stalt.
“Watch what you say to this man,” intones the Second Signature to the officers as if commanding a playground tribe. “He is the brother of the late Fleet Admiral Delah Stalt.” She points at the painting above the door. “Or do none of you notice him presiding over us?”
Delah’s mention tempers the outrage only slightly. Gauss’s fat face could absorb a blow or two, and as Bolen taps Genebrict on the shoulder and shifts another glass over, he does not hide his readiness to launch another assault if needed.
Still with her legs crossed, the Second Signature shuffles around. “The city is quite different since you were last here, Genebrict. Even my staff fail to realize that.” She turns to Gauss. “As ordered, General. Now. The situation is evolving even as we speak.”
“Yes, Signature.” Gauss swallows something back before addressing the room. “You all may have heard of the Hyrnlak Archipelago. As the name suggests, it is a collection of islands about six weeks via ropeway from here, a hundred kilometers off the western shores of the Lapasian municipal border. It is the largest Gash closest to both our cities. Mind you, nothing the size of the Abscess, but it is cause for concern given its location.”
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Stalt shivers at the mention of the Abscess, the first and largest Gash in the world. It is where the raw ground first sprouted 127 years ago, and Stalt can’t imagine how many cycles the stuff there has gone through and the horrible creatures frolicking around it.
“Lapasia is occupied with Chant insurgencies across their countryside and a bit spilling over into ours,” says Gauss. “Thus, we are obligated and committed to Hyrnlak.” He laughs at something, and no one adds to it. “We first landed there damned close to the advent of 120 AB.” He waits for an army of servants to wheel in a series of map boards. “Now, Jubilee is Hyrnlak’s largest temple, located on the archipelago’s northernmost island. It is walled, like Kaskit was pre-Bursting, and the Gash is located here. Towards the end of 121 AB, we attempted to assault Jubilee. We were supposed to occupy it until receiving reinforcements from the Far Flung Sails, but, well…” He looks around the room and settles his eyes on Genebrict. “Our first assault failed, and only one Flung gondola returned.”
The Glownabar. That was the name of Delah’s flagship gondola. Stalt had waited eagerly for its return, only to realize Delah was not on board. Ingram had told him the supposed truth of all that.
“Go on,” says the Second Signature, though not before nodding to Stalt as if considering him.
“The Corps was overrun and forced to retreat from the temple,” Gauss continues. “The maligned kept chase, pushing the 1st battalion—the only remaining force—to Lomlen, the archipelago’s southernmost island. They have attempted to keep the raw and the maligned at bay for years.” The assistants point to a small bean-shaped plot of land on the far opposite side of Jubilee. “We have deemed the only surviving ropeway landing zone at Lomlen ‘RLZ 1’. Creative, I know, but it contains the archipelago’s only functioning bullwheel, which we still use to ferry reinforcements and supplies. Our reports from our mycorrhizal web at Hyrnlak state that our men are dying of disease, starvation, and the occasional maligned skirmish. Soon, we will have to stop sending reinforcements.” Gauss gets up from his chair and waddles to stand beside the maps.
A few eyes flick Genebrict’s way as if they expect him to lend something to the discussion. “What does all this have to do with my sister? She served for you lot and died for you.”
“We’ll get to that,” says Gauss.
“No. You wouldn’t have brought me here if I wasn’t important, so tell me.”
It is the Second Signature who sighs. “Fleet Admiral Stalt often spoke out of turn as well.” She turns to face Genebrict. “The situation Gauss is describing has changed. Drastically. And before you ask, yes, it does involve your sister.”
Stalt looks around. He appears to be the helmsman of this conversation, so he should steer it. “How so?”
The little girl sighs and gestures for Gauss to pause the explanation. “I call it the Inciter strand.”
Men adjust their seats as they turn to each other. Genebrict thinks he hears a dozen gulps. The raw ground has secreted hundreds of strands, but he has never heard of the type ‘Inciter.’ Bolen looks confused as well, not to mention Ingram and his officers. Even Gauss removes his attention from the invisible puzzle he had resumed solving after his explanation.
The only person unaffected by the mention is the Second Signature herself, who calls to the end of the table. “Show them your calf.”
The incubator does not look bothered by the press of eyes on her. Without warning, she plants a booted foot onto the table and lifts her trouser leg to reveal a scar. It’s long enough to have split her leg open.
“That’s a maligned wound,” says one officer.
“What the Hells was an incubator doing near maligned?” asks another.
“I’m not a fucking incubator,” the woman stresses, her leg still planted on the table. “I’m a Thurmgeist.”
The silence that follows could have scalded Stalt’s hands. The eyes in the room snap to the woman, seeing her in a new light. Stalt, too, feels himself unable to turn away.
“Get her out of here!” cries a Flung officer. “Chain her to a vat!”
“Calm down,” says the Second Signature. “I would agree, but she is not just any Thurmgeist. She is the June-Leckie—the one who led the abductions of my incubators years ago and sent them to Hyrnlak.” The little girl commanding the meeting straightens her back. “I consider this her immediate surrender.”
“Fuck you,” says June, her leg still on the table. She points to it. “A maligned did this intentionally, and I probably could have stopped it if I had taken more girls from you.”
“There’s no way,” says one of Gauss’s officers. The rest of Cackle’s entourage seems to share the sentiment, but the general himself does not laugh.
“I have confirmed that a maligned did indeed inflict that wound.” The speaker is a man in a black tunic with a plague mask hanging from his neck, its beak long and curved. Not an ounce of hair is left on his body, shaved off or charred, and he looks around Bolen’s age. Judging by his outfit and the authority in the discussion, Stalt surmises there is only one title to describe this man. “This Inciter strand,” the Surgeon Elder continues, “is currently living inside June.”
The room stills, and questions flavor its silence. Did the Decree stop working? Is June telling the truth? Too many possibilities plague Stalt, but he broaches the most pertinent one. “Is this ‘Inciter’ strand contagious?”
“Not under our atmosphere,” says the Surgeon Elder. “We are all safe in here, I assure you.”
“What about outside?” Stalt prods.
“I’ve already thought of that,” says the Second Signature. “I’ve stopped immigration. No one comes inside until we can neutralize this. No one.”
“But malignment can still occur, right?” asks Bolen. It seems the visitors are the only ones with the balls to ask the tough questions.
“Yes,” says the Surgeon Elder. “Unfortunately. All potential hosts will be watched closely.” He locks gazes with Stalt.
“That seems like a ton of people,” Stalt says.
“Not as much as you think,” says the Second Signature before spewing out some numbers that Stalt doesn’t pay attention to.
“If this thing even is real,” murmurs one of Gauss’s officers. Someone had to say it.
“I know what I saw,” June says. “I was targeted by a maligned. A maligned attacked me. It tried to turn me. It turned my Thurmgeists already, and if you don’t believe me, then you’re all about as useless as they come.”
Eyes turn to Gauss, the Second Signature, and even Genebrict as if he holds any sway over this matter.
“There is no doubt that whatever attacked June is maligned,” the Second Signature continues. “She led the Thurmgeists in the Hyrnlak Archipelago during the assault on Jubilee. I believe her. She has no reason to lie, and we have the evidence right before us.”
Nothing screams humanity’s desperation more than woman soldiers. “I thought women are supposed to be incubators,” Stalt says, pushing the point further.
“They are,” says the Second Signature, turning to the room. “I assure you all I will never let another woman enter battle again if I have anything to say about it.” She focuses on Gauss specifically. “Don’t tell me you’ve been ignorant of this affair.”
“This bitch acted on her own,” says Gauss, and laughs. “And look where it got her!”
June springs up, but Vakye, the Entrusted beetle, stomps over. She scowls and sits, looking charged up and ready to hurl something at the laughing general.
Reckless witch, Stalt thinks. “The most important organ is the womb. Women should be in chambers.”
“Like your sister?” June asks.
Stalt grunts. He’s heard this argument before. “Delah could hold her own.”
“Yeah? So where is she now?”
Genebrict clutches the drinking glass, contemplating testing his earlier hypothesis of the Decree’s effectiveness in protecting June against his own malignment. That would answer a few questions.
“Calm the fuck down. All of you.” The curse is strange coming from a young girl, but the Second Signature ignores it and shimmies to the end of the table. “I know at least a little bit concerning the forces beyond, about that which is Written, about the laws we cannot change. Whatever this Inciter strand is, it does not conform to the Decree, though I don’t know why. It is indeed a strand, but neither the First Signature nor I have any control over it. So, unless we contain it, it will run rampant. If we cannot, it will jump to some life form and find its way to the mainland—to Lapasia or us.” The entire room turns to June. “She is fine, I remind you, but soon, someone else will slip through without us knowing. If we are not ready for it, everything will be like the early years of the Bursting.”
“I still don’t know what this has to do with Delah,” Stalt says.
“I have my best chemists, biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and medical zoologists working on creating a neutralizing agent,” the Second Signature continues, seeming to ignore Stalt. “We will find a cure with enough time and a strict enough containment. For Hyrnlak, it is already too late.” She lets this point sink in and turns to Genebrict. “I believe your sister knows this.”
Stalt shakes his head. “Whoever you’re seeing, that is not Delah. She hated the Chant with a fervor.”
Then how did she plant the Myco strand in herself and you, sister?
The Second Signature holds up a hand, seeming to understand the conclusion Stalt has just drawn. “Her movements suggest she is trying to reach Hyrnlak before we do, perhaps to reinforce it or dismantle the support towers to sag the line to the ground.” She turns to the room. “We want to know why she’s even bothering.”
She, as if it’s all his sister’s plan—a woman who should be dead. This is all a fabrication or grand punishment for an atrocious act Genebrict does not remember committing. Any moment now, they’ll tell him. “Answer me, then. Why me?”
Gauss clears his throat, and the voice that leaves sounds tired. “We were hoping you could tell us.”
So, that must be it; everyone knows about the mycorrhizal inside him, not just Ingram. Stalt goes along. “She hasn’t said anything useful to me since I arrived here. It’s not as if she’s revealing her plans to me.”
“Not yet, at least,” Gauss says, “which is why we must act.” He waits for the room to settle. “We are halting reinforcements to Hyrnlak for now. Our remaining troops will march towards Jubilee again, for what we hope will be the last time.” His officers stir. “Meanwhile, the Flung will ride the ropeway to Hyrnlak and, once there, will set the whole island ablaze.”
Bolen chokes up a laugh. “Just burn the Hells damned thing? All of it? That’s going to take an eternity.”
The Second Signature finds the militia captain. When he silences, she beckons the room to answer. “Any better ideas? Fire is the great cleanser, and the Inciter strand is not immune to it. Nothing is.”
As radical as the suggestion is, it holds a ruthless simplicity Stalt admires. “But how much sap do you need to burn an entire archipelago?” he asks.
Papers rustle among the gathered guests. Someone has run the figure but is keeping it to themselves. So much is whispered here.
The Second Signature speaks over the murmurs. “No sap. Just one fire seed.”
Everyone feels the pause that comes next except for the little girl and the fat general. The two freaks make a good pair, come to think of it.
And you, Gen, might be their third.
He isn’t sure whose thought that is.
“It is not an exaggeration,” Ingram tells Stalt as much as the rest of the room. “A well-planted Foktle seed infused with a Firestarter strand could ignite the entire Abscess over a series of weeks, though the maligned would throw their bodies onto the flames before it burned long enough.”
Ingram nods to the room and continues. “We’ll take an Anvil-class gondola to the Hyrnlak Archipelago; one outfitted with cannons, harpoons, and firestarter hoses. It will have ample holds and quarters to house the crews of the six Skiff-class gondolas ahead and behind it, and the journey should last about six weeks. I would assign something stronger, perhaps a Broadside-class, but this is all we can spare, given that most of our forces are concentrated at the Abscess and that the insurgencies outside Kaskit are increasing, and some inside—though those are negligible. ”
Stalt’s thoughts are still on his sister. “And Delah knows about this already?”
Ingram nods. “Chant spies likely informed her.”
The fleet commander gazes at Stalt a little longer, and it’s then Stalt realizes he is the best spy for the Chant because if what Ingram said before is true, Delah is perceiving this entire briefing right now. The Second Signature doubtless knows this, too.
Ingram takes a report from one of his officers and reviews it. “Shipspinner Skelton oversees the reconstruction of his father’s first and only gondola, which inherits their family name and will be complete within the week. Fleet Admiral Stalt, however, is already on her way to Hyrnlak to overwhelm our forces and likely capture the bullwheel terminal.”
It is all still too much to believe. “Even if this is all true,” Stalt says, “you’ve already failed. Delah will reach Hyrnlak before you.”
“We may still be able to beat her,” Ingram says as more attendants wheel in another map board, placing it in front of Jubilee’s. “The only city we need to pass through is Lamascus, on the outskirts of Lapasia’s southern borders. From there, we’ll ride the rest of the line straight to the archipelago. It’s a straightforward route.”
Stalt is convinced, like all paths ever estimated by anyone, that this plan is too optimistic. Something will go wrong. Call him a pessimist, but he’s seen when careful planning goes to shit.
The Second Signature speaks, cutting Stalt out of his thoughts. “Your link with your sister will only strengthen as the mycorrhizal within you roots itself deeper. Once it does, we will have a direct line of communication with her. You’ll be able to listen to her conversations and perhaps read some of her thoughts.”
Read your thoughts, eh, Deh? How would you like that? You’re in my head, so maybe I can be in yours.
Equalizing the circumstance quickly loses its appeal, however, for Genebrict was never one to hold grudges with his sister. Brothers, he quickly learned, should be forgiving.
Among this plethora of unbelievable information arranged in front of Stalt, he unearths an idea of something else unspoken. It flashes in the eyes of the other men as they consult their commanding officers. They flick glances back to Genebrict as if questioning how to deal with such a person, such a wrench in their cogs.
He catches the meaning a heartbeat later. “You’re going to kill Delah.”
This time, the silence is unanimous.
“It is likely,” says the Second Signature. “I am sorry, Genebrict, but your sister will probably not back down. Her intentions spell doom for us.”
Stalt thinks of lashing out—thinks of slapping the little girl in the face for even considering harming his sister until he realizes Delah had been dead for five years before he learned what he knows today. His brotherly instincts kick in, the same that he used to protect Delah in her years before joining the Flung. It is primarily an emotional decision, free of logic and reason. Sister or not, he can’t deny his gut.
Do you still need me now, Delah? If you’re still in there and care about me, you’ll tell me now. Right now.
Stalt waits, and waits, and waits, and as the briefing concludes and the room empties and he’s left there sitting alone, not once does Delah tell him to stay away, to save himself, to return to the Basket and forget about him.
So what is a brother to do?
“Genebrict.” The voice is soft, coming from behind him. The Second Signature stands with her Entrusted by her side. “Because you are her brother, I think this is only fair.”
Before Stalt can ask questions, she removes something from a fold in her dress. It’s a glass case with an acorn-shaped pod inside. A Firestarter seed.
“She didn’t have a chance to throw it,” says the girl on her way out, “but hopefully you will.”