looking outside engendered. It was the sky. Timha did not need to see the sky today. Not today when the dread was so bad that it felt as though his insides were liquefying.
All night the intricate dance of the Project paraded before him in dreams. He could not escape those motions; the precision and complexity of them consumed his waking hours and his sleeping ones as well now. Not that he slept much, or well.
Timha was still seeing those motions when he emerged in the dining hall, glowering at the other journeyers and their apprentices. They seemed at ease, restful, even content as they sat lingering over their breakfasts before the stoves that were never quite hot enough. Well, why shouldn't they be content? Each had his or her own little bit of the overall structure of the Project to contend with, and it was challenging, rewarding work for them. They knew that their presence here meant that they were the best and most respected thaumaturges in the empire, long may it sail. They knew that when their work here was done they would retire, wealthy and respected, to villas on the fore moorings of the fairest cities, perhaps even the new City of Mab itself.
What they did not know was the thing that made Timha sweat at night, that made him lightheaded and anxious nearly every moment of the day. They were spared this knowledge because it would do no good for any of them to know.
'Morning, Timha,' said Giaco, one of the Elements experts, leader of the group who were working on improving the outer shell. 'How are things in the heart of the beast?' Giaco and his team were close with one another; several of them had taught together at a university in one of the flag cities. They were working on the project of their lifetimes, with access to only the best supplies and research materials, a limitless budget, and an army of apprentices who would gladly do anything they asked. Moreover, they were doing all this in Mab's own Secret City, one of the most hallowed locations in all of the empire. This was Mab's redoubt. This was where she had come to have her children, where she mourned the loss of her husbands. This was where Beozho wrote his Works. Giaco and his friends were in paradise.
Timha hated them for it.
'Things are progressing very well, thanks,' said Timha primly. He sat at a table by himself, took tea from an apprentice without looking up, and tried to ignore the dance that twirled in his mind. The cruel irony of his position struck him now as it often did, that he was suffering not because he was a poor worker or because he was intellectually inferior to his fellows, but rather because he was their better. Master Valmin had taken Timha under his wing early on, brought him into the core team, gone over the more esoteric and taboo portions of the Project with him. At the beginning, they had all been excited, and none more so than Timha. It was the position of a lifetime. And while he certainly had reservations about the use of the Black Art, Valmin had assured him that it was for a noble cause, that evil could indeed be harnessed for good.
For the sake of the empire, Valmin had said, an encouraging smile on his face. Think of the soldiers who gutted their enemies on the battlefield, of the generals who sent their troops into the fray knowing that not all of them would return. All great enterprises, Valmin had told him, have some element of darkness at their heart. Better to name it and know it, to contain it so that it did only the harm it was intended to do.
What Valmin had not told Timha, or perhaps had not known himself, was that working the Black Art was not something one did lightly. It was powerful but draining, both mentally and emotionally, and the feeling of ... Timha could only describe it as sinfulness never left him, though Timha believed in neither Aba nor the Chthonics, nor anything else for that matter. The Black Art wormed its way into your bones. Its harsh workings yielded impressive results, but each day Timha had felt as though a part of his soul were draining away.
And that was before all the trouble had begun.
It started with a realization that Timha himself had made, reviewing an extremely complex passage in the notes of Hy Pezho, the Project's original creator. Timha had read the passage over and over again, trying to deduce its meaning and finding himself unable. He'd brought it to Valmin, who had retired to his own quarters with it for most of a day. When Valmin had emerged, it had been with a dour face. Their task was going to be much more difficult than they had at first believed.
Valmin had been given the most prestigious portion of the work, and he had shared it with Timha and a few select others because they had proven themselves the best of the best in their respective fields of study. And now they were the ones who would have their throats cut by the Bel Zheret if they failed. The others would be sent home, perhaps with a bit of disgrace, or more likely with no comment at all, and Valmin and Timha and a few others would be gutted like fish and left to rot in the stinking basements of the Secret City where the raw materials for the Black Art were kept.
Timha shuddered at the thought. The basements were the only things that bothered him more than the sky.
Nothing was what it was supposed to be.
Timha lingered over breakfast, but it still ended too quickly. He made his way down a twisting corridor to Master Valmin's chambers. The doors were manned by a pair of armed guards who opened the door for Timha, waving a deglamouring wand over him, relaxing their grips on their weapons only when they determined that Timha was indeed Timha.
