Makkdarm still lay with his blade outstretched. Had the man an ounce of life left, she was certain he’d have spent it attempting to extinguish hers. And she would be forced to strike him again, and again, and again until she was safe.
A light, some brighter part of her, flickered and guttered.
From the doorway came a scuff. Fejak stared dully at Makkdarm, seeing him but not seeing. Fejak’s face was white, his eyes constantly darting. He looked as though he preferred watching Makkdarm’s dead body than what he’d seen inside those doors. She removed her glove and felt at her side, then screamed again. And then again, but quieter. Fejak watched her. The cut was deep and bleeding. Not her first injury, but definitely her worst.
“Help me up, Fejak,” she said. “Take me, take me to any person in this place.”
Fejak wrapped an arm around her unwounded side but didn’t move. She let out a shallow sigh of relief. So, Makkdarm had been alone. Thank all the Gods and Sumad Himself, something had gone right. Except for…
Keeper Makkdarm. She’d killed him.
The Gods allowed self-defense.
But she’d come prepared to kill, so did that make it invalid?
No, she’d come prepared to mindlock.
Why then, had she brought the knife?
No, it was time to think of herself, for now. The wound would kill her if she didn’t get it treated.
“Take me to the closest medical kit,” she gasped.
Fejak started toward the door. Good. Two and a half hours until his serum wore off. Five hours until sunrise and guard rotation.
Fejak stood at the door, reluctant to go beyond. Strange. She looped an arm around his neck and commanded him forward, pushing open the door.
She gasped again, although not in pain. She couldn’t process the sight, couldn’t understand what she saw.
“Oh,” she said faintly, squeezing Fejak’s shoulder as realization dawned. “That’s why he needed a cleaver.”
What she saw was not a collection of corrupted mechanisms being assembled into a dark golem.
It was the product of the Immersion Chamber, and those who had created it.
17
Splitting pain blurred Terese’s vision. She squinted at the papers in her hand. Dammit, she couldn’t remember nearly as much as she needed to. All the while the unceasing cacophony assaulted her ears, hindering her mind as much as her wound. It would have been so much easier to take the papers, but she dared not. In fact, everything had to be left exactly as before she’d disturbed Makkdarm.
It had taken Fejak time to carry the dead man and re-position him near the cages lining the walls. The next person to enter this room would see Makkdarm’s body in the spot where his cause of death would not be queried, nor deemed terribly surprising.
Because of the cadvers.
Makkdarm’s body would be found sprawled beside a row of cages containing active cadvers, who’d already clawed his throat and face open.
The pale, slender cadvers had snarled, spat and screamed at Terese and Fejak from toothless mouths for hours, snatching at them with taloned fingers from within the cages. Not all the cadvers had arms to grasp with, however. A gray, unholy arm had been lying on the operation table before she’d pushed it off, making room for Fejak to operate on her.
And there were things downstairs that were worse.
The anesthetic Fejak had given her before sewing her back together was wearing off. She checked the damaged plate at her side, gently poking the neatly stitched wound and gasping in pain. Yes, she needed another anesthetic shot.
But they’d taken too long. Poor Fejak was already on his second dose of mindlock, and looking more miserable every minute they remained in the room. He clearly hadn’t known what was down here.
She replaced the papers in the desk drawers as she’d found them. She’d expected answers but found more questions. The document that most seized her attention had been a map of the Cenephan weaver training academy Patzer hated so much: HopeWall. In red ink, someone had drawn circles around a tower inside the oval-ringed Wall, scrawling ‘Here!’ nearby. Elsewhere the same hand had drawn arrows to four tall towers outside the HopeWall oval, writing beside them ‘Golem?’. There were what looked like assault plans against HopeWall on other documents, but no explanation of what the attackers seemed to be searching for.
It wasn’t Lijjen’s handwriting. It could have been Keeper Makkdarm’s, or any other Keeper’s. Or Patzer’s.
Now she had the knowledge she’d chased for months, and had a better theory on what was happening.
Patzer had a grudge against the renegades for whatever they’d done to him. Added to her capture by those renegades; whoever was responsible for this abomination beneath Sumad Reach, had suspected Head Saarg’s true mission was to expose it.
That workshop in the Wastes hadn’t been for making dark golem or any such thing. It seemed the workshop was some sort of… ‘bait station’, to lure cadvers with all that chaos energy. Patzer had said there were more cadvers in Serenity Territory than anywhere else. These ones down here, somehow pacified with technology she could only guess at, had been locked in the boxes by Jools and her fellow mindlocked dark ops Seekers and brought here. Jools thought she’d been transporting antiques.
Whatever punishment awaited her for participating in the Immersion Chamber was a slap on the wrist compared to what awaited this perversion of the ancient Seekers’ Charter. At least she’d believed she was doing something that would benefit humanity at the time, much as she’d deceived herself.
She turned gingerly, to survey the room for signs of her visit. Finding none, she donned her helmet.
“We’re going, Fejak. If you see any signs of our time in this place, other than Keeper Makkdarm’s remains, correct them now.” She had to shout to be heard over the cadvers.
It wasn’t the time to think of the cadvers. She had to get out safely before allowing herself to think, or she’d start making mistakes. The implications couldn’t rest in her head, or she
