She pressed her stylus back to the paper.
What we do is figure out what is going on in Sumad Reach and the Territories. We say nothing controversial, observe nothing unusual. We learn what pieces of the jigsaw are missing.
Instead of writing, Toornan embraced her. Such a simple gesture, such profound relief. And she hadn’t needed to lie. Just telling someone, anyone, the honest truth after months of nervous silence warmed her. He squeezed her hand and went back to his spot, watching the Wastes.
Terese slept.
“I mean, we have trees that move about and grow vegetables back in Armer,” Jools blathered the next morning, as they trekked further into Chastity Territory. “And they think that’s strange here. But you know what I think’s strange? Those random six-sided patches of land. The hexagons. Every plant on it grows three times as fast as everything outside. Three times! Even just random thorn bushes and brush.
“But,” she said, biting her lip, “I think I’d want a corner room if I could live anywhere back at Sumad Reach. Two sunlit walls can make a living room come alive.”
At the very edge of her perception, a dark shudder tingled in Terese’s mind. It strengthened with each step, despite Jools’s torrent of nonsense.
“I wouldn’t need so many glowbulbs or so much light paint, which means I could get some varnished wood. In fact, back home, we could learn some lessons from Sumad about when to use wood for decoration and when to use it to buttress–”
“There,” said Terese, reaching across Jools’s chest to halt her. “That collection of metal roofs and sides in between those two hills. They’re better assembled.”
Toornan raised an eyebrow. Terese nodded her confirmation behind Jools’ turned head.
The construction didn’t really look any better, though it was unusually large for the slumland. Nestled between two natural hillocks like most shelters in the area, the fort-like structure had been arranged in a dilapidated circle with slim peepholes cut though the rusting metal sheets.
“It’s fortified,” Terese said, “and taller than anything else around here.”
“Circle ’round?” asked Jools.
“No, all together up to that entryway. There’s no hiding our approach, day or night.”
“Looks like there’s only one way in or out,” said Toornan, as they set off toward the enclosure. “And there’s wheel tracks at the gate. A lot of coming and going.”
“No sudden movements, hands where they can be seen,” said Terese. “Keep your poles ready.”
They opened the gate. A familiar, foul smell overran her senses. They found madness within.
Everything was broken. Benches, tables, barricades, boxes and clothing lay strewn around as if a tornado had descended on the slum fort.
The Seekers drew their shockpoles in one fluid motion, the rush of vibrations unable to settle Terese’s stomach. Just feet away, beneath a ripped mattress spilling old cotton, lay a human arm. Pale skin, like a Cenephan’s. Flies swarmed around the limb. There wasn’t space for the rest of the body beneath the mattress. There were other limbs, heads and viscera spread about the fort.
From habit, Terese blocked her rising horror to dispassionately analyze the site. But she couldn’t stop the shudder running over her body. Worryingly, her clenched gut wouldn’t relax, spreading faint nausea into the base of her throat: a tell-tale sign of nearby chaos infection. They’d seen something very much like this, months earlier, underground in Armer. Her forehead grew damp.
She made quick hand signals. Stay together. Circle the area. I’ll lead. The broken and splintered wood shards could have been anything before they’d been wrecked—chairs, tables, mattress supports... Shreds of a cotton tarpaulin that must have once stretched over the fort, now lay in pieces on the ground.
There was little to explore. Possibly there’d been divisions and walls in this place, but none remained standing. Everything was open to view.
“Clear,” said Terese. “Whoever did this is gone.” She made certain not to say ‘whatever’. Nothing human had killed the innocents within the Immersion Chamber, and this couldn’t be the work of humans either. But neither was it the work of cadvers.
“Terese, I can feel chaos,” said Jools.
Terese nodded. Her nausea was rising, making her stomach twitch. She quietly thanked the Gods she’d not eaten in hours. There was too much chaos flexing the air, turning her skin to gooseflesh. She couldn’t stay long before retching or fainting. She couldn’t let slip how advanced her Seeker sense was.
“It’s there,” Terese said, waving her shockpole at a cloth sack atop a stretch of torn tarpaulin.
Think of fresh meadows. And cool, soft air with the scent of streams.
Toornan grabbed at the sack, upending it and spilling dozens of bent metal fragments onto the ground in a clanking rush.
A wave of chaos energy from the pile dizzied Terese, reeling her backward and sending her sprawling.
“Terese?” Jools was at her side, tugging her shoulder.
There were downsides to having such developed Seeker senses.
“I’m fine, Jools,” she said, squeezing Jools’s forearm. “That rush of chaos surprised me, is all.”
“What is this?” said Toornan, staggering back from the metallic pile. He didn’t seem to expect an answer. “They’re fragments, all torn up. Bah.” He rubbed at his eyes, as if the sight of the pieces had hurt them.
Terese let Jools help her up. Her stomach twitched violently, her body telling her to get out, not understanding why she wasn’t running by now.
“Looks like this is where the smuggled mechanisms were headed,” Terese said. “They were cut up with chaos energy, to make something else. These are the remains.”
Mechanisms were usually forged in metal for durability, using specially smelted material that retained complex vibration weaves.
“Is this a dark workshop?” asked Jools.
“There’s no construction tools around,” she said. “It can’t be.” She wasn’t performing for Lijjen; she couldn’t be certain. Severed bodies all over, rotting. Gods, the smell!
“Is it like the underground chamber?” said Jools.
“Maybe,” Terese said. “But there wasn’t any
