Valus Mountains. Only reluctantly did she focus nearer.

The wormies had taken up positions a few hundred yards from the gates.

“They’re out of range of ballista and catapults,” she said. “They’re not stupid.”

“No, they aren’t,” Brennus replied. “Necromancers have been known to make such creatures as these, but they are generally mindless. And slow. We’re dealing with something new here. Did you hear what happened last night?”

“What do you mean?”

“A man died of natural causes and rose up as one of these. The watch got him, and afterward they put out the alarm. There were three more cases.”

“Just like Jarrow, and the others we lost on the hill.”

“Right. Whatever spirits animate them clearly can travel more than a few paces.”

“Every time we kill one, we risk a corpse waking up in town.”

Brennus nodded.

“What do you reckon, then? They’ll try to starve us out?”

“No,” the mage replied. “I think they’re just waiting for reinforcements.” As he said it, he pointed.

She saw it then, pale as a cloud with distance, unmistakable.

Umbriel itself was coming for them.

SEVEN

Annaig picked at the flesh of the green nutlike thing and popped it into her mouth, chewing slowly. She felt a little heat like black pepper, followed by a rush in her nose like fiery mustard and green onions. The texture, though, was like a boiled cashew.

“That’s great,” she told Glim. “What is it?”

“Something new,” he said. “Maybe from Morrowind.”

“Maybe,” Annaig said dubiously.

“Wert says that sometimes the sump will go for years without producing a particular thing, then start again, while something else vanishes for a time.”

“How does it do it?” she wondered. “Does Umbriel store seeds and eggs someplace?”

“I don’t think so,” Glim told her. “I think it’s the trees.”

Glim had a sharp, excited scent about him, and he seemed to be barely holding something in.

“The trees?” she asked.

“The trees in the Fringe Gyre,” he said. “You saw them when we tried to escape.”

“Well, yes,” she said. “But it was dark, and I was distracted by-well, escaping.”

“I believe that they are cousins of the Hist.”

“That’s interesting. I can’t imagine what that means.”

“Well-think of water oaks and white oaks in Black Marsh. They’re both oaks because they have acorns; their leaves are arranged in a spiral. But other things about them are different. Like cousins.”

“Okay,” Annaig said. “I follow that, although I never thought of it that way. So are you saying that the trees in the Fringe Gyre are intelligent, like the Hist?”

“Yes and no. They communicate, as the Hist do, but in different tones. I didn’t really learn to hear them until Fhena showed me, and then-”

“Fhena?”

“Yes, one of the gardeners in the trees. She helped me find you. Surely I mentioned her.”

“No, you surely did not,” Annaig said.

“Well, she’s just someone I talk to,” Mere-Glim said. She thought he sounded defensive.

“A woman?”

“She is female, yes.”

“Uh-huh.”

He made a low growl in his throat, which she understood as embarrassment. “It’s not like that,” he said. “She’s not-I mean, she’s an Umbrielian. She looks like a Dunmer.”

“Fine. I’m just wondering, if you’re so friendly with her, why you haven’t mentioned her before.”

He blinked at her, and she realized she sounded stupid. Jealous. And what did she have to be jealous over?

But the fact that after all of these years as best friends, he hadn’t mentioned her…

She pushed it off.

“The trees,” she said.

“Yes,” he replied. “Some of my people believe that the Hist came to Tamriel from Oblivion. Umbriel is from Oblivion, too, so it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to me that they could be cousins.”

“Yes, but it would be a huge coincidence.”

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I think the city tree somehow called Umbriel, or the Fringe Gyre trees may have called to the Hist-but I think there was some sort of collusion.”

“Are the trees here malevolent?”

“No, they are-vaguer than the Hist. Not as intelligent maybe, or maybe just in a different way. Simpler. But like the Hist, they can form their sap into different things, the way you do with your equipment. And they can shape life, change its form.”

She thought about that for a moment.

“That-makes sense. One of my tasks is to take raw ingredients from the sump and transform them into nutrients for the trees, but part of that process involves getting the roots themselves to release substances. I haven’t worked in the large fermentation vats, but I have noticed there are always roots involved.”

“I think it’s the trees who remember all the forms of life on Umbriel,” Glim said. “I think they produce the proforms-the little worms Umbrielians start as. Then the ingenium gives them a soul, and they grow according to some sort of plan the trees remember.”

“Well, that’s really interesting,” Annaig said. “If we could poison the trees, destroy them, that would in essence destroy Umbriel.”

Glim’s eyes went wide. “But you can’t-” he began, then stopped. “It would take a long time,” he said. “And it might not be possible.”

“If they are all connected at the root, like the Hist-sure, they all draw nourishment from the sump.”

An expression flickered across his features that she had never actually seen before, but it reminded her of anger.

“Look,” she said, “you’re saying these trees are responsible for the murder of almost everyone we know.”

“I’m not,” he said. “I’m saying they were used. Someone used them.”

“Glim, you can’t-I know how you feel about some of these people, but-”

“I don’t think you do,” he said. “You hate everyone you know here.”

“Glim, the one person I showed friendship to tried to kill me.”

“I know,” he said. “But the skraws are different. And Fhena.”

She sighed. “Look, let’s take one thing at a time. What about Phmer’s kitchen? Can I get in?”

“You can’t get in far,” he said. “Any more than I could get into your kitchen.”

“But here we are.”

“No, no. I can get to your pantry, and so could someone from another kitchen, in the proper disguise. But to go any farther would raise all sorts of alarms and protections. Some are in the walls, living things that see and smell the uninvited. Others, as I understand it, are sorcerous in nature. All I know is, they say at least twenty people from other kitchens have tried to invade past Phmer’s pantry; all were caught or killed. Almost as many have tried to get into Toel’s kitchen since you came to work there.”

“I haven’t heard anything about that.”

“That’s because they all went into the sump,” he said.

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