Titles and ceremonies were nothing. Chapterhouses weren’t necessary. All that remained if you took away the created meaning that humans put into their lives, to give shape to chaos, was action. Being a Seeker meant nothing if the vileness below the chapterhouse existed. It was better to be no one than a corrupt degenerate. Better to leave no name than a bad one. Better to rebel against bad leaders than tolerate their decrees.
And there was only one more thing to say to Him.
“Lord Sumad, I renounce my Seeker vows. I wish only to destroy evil, wherever it may be. Witness this pledge, Lord. I am no Seeker, only Your servant. Guide my actions.”
She was a woman who hunted cadvers and sought to eliminate chaos where she found it. Titles and decorations and rituals were nothing, compared to her deeds.
She dried her tears and stood. Better to be a renegade than a collaborator.
Terese Saarg would break Sumad Reach to pieces. Polis would provide.
Her aches had melted and been forgotten by the time she left the chapel and took the stairs from the basement, ascending into the streaming daylight.
19
Terese woke instantly. A hand was over her mouth, although it was too dark to see whose. She broke into a cold sweat.
They’d finally figured it out.
A week since her raid, and they’d come for her. Perhaps she’d be fitted with some of the hideous devices from the unspeakable laboratory. That place, those things had given her nightmares. An involuntary whimper rose and died in her throat. Pella’s face came to mind. If only she could get an orphan’s grant and continue living with her grandparents, Terese could die at peace.
The hand on her mouth would be Lijjen’s, or possibly Patzer’s. Either would relish this, would have fantasized how to make her death as painful as possible. There’d been no announcement of Makkdarm’s death or any change in procedure: Only an announcement he’d gone on leave. If not for her injury, she’d have wondered if she’d dreamed the entire thing.
“You’ll not be hurt,” a man whispered. “Once I take my hand away, you can scream until you are blue in the face and I’ll have no choice but to run. But then you’ll never know why I came. Nod if you understand.”
She nodded.
The hand came off and she sat up, gulping air even though he hadn’t been suffocating her. She instinctively pulled her woolen nightwear down over the wound at her side.
Her window grate was bent apart, letting in meagre light from the open shutters. She blinked. Her visitor was no Sumadan. She looked closer. The figure was light-skinned like her, muscular and around the age of an apprentice. If the hair were longer and the face bearded, then it could have been… her mouth dropped open.
“Zalaran Morgenheth?” The renegade who’d knocked her unconscious at the failed taking and questioned her the morning after. Her last meeting with Morgenheth and his three comrades had gone badly. But, any foe of Patzer must, by definition, have redeeming qualities.
“Yes.” His voice was carefully neutral, coldly polite.
“The room will be bugged.”
“It’s not. The one under your bed must have gone dead weeks ago.”
She’d searched under the bed at least five times. How could…? Never mind.
“Listen to me, Morgenheth, this chapterhouse—”
“No, you listen to me. We need help with a—”
“No! Shut up and listen.” She lowered her voice and pointed at him. “Forget Patzer! Active cadvers are being experimented on beneath this chapterhouse!”
He made several shapes with his mouth before managing a word. “What?”
She grabbed his forearms, pulling herself up to face him. “Ever since we arrived, they thought I was spying on them, because they’re hiding something much worse.”
“You met… Patzer?”
She had no time for this. “The man is a lunatic. He dragged me all over the Wastes looking for you, convinced I was hiding something. What did you do to make him hate you so much?”
“I… We…”
“He’s convinced you four are hiding at a monk hill somewhere. If you’re at one, get clear of it because he’ll find you.”
“What? We’re nowhere near… There’s nothing like that where we are. No, really. There’s no hill at… where we are.”
The boy was as confused as she’d been over Patzer’s hill obsession. Despite Patzer’s much-vaunted informants, somehow, the renegades had upended his expectations.
As they had hers.
“What did you four do to him?”
“There was… a fire. Um, it’s a long story.” He looked back out the window, where the silhouette of a head hovered. Another renegade, it scarcely mattered which one. “The Darkness is controlling him. And others. Lost their minds, all of them, but we don’t know how.”
“How did you find me?” she asked.
“You told us which chapterhouse,” he said. “How we found your room and did this?” he gestured to the bent window grill. “We’ll tell you, if you’ll come to us. We…” he exhaled, “need your help. Please.”
“Listen, Morgenheth, there are cadvers below our feet and I have to destroy them. A group of Seekers here are obsessed with golem, and somehow altering cadvers to be like golem. I don’t know, I haven’t figured it out. I threw the Seekers off your scent, and your case was handed to Patzer. I kept my end of the bargain, but I’m not safe. I killed a Keeper who was working on things worse than the Immersion Chamber, and they might still learn it was me.”
“How did—”
“I barely got out alive. I can’t do this by myself, Morgenheth. I need to take this chapterhouse down and I need your help.”
“Can you get leave?” he asked.
“No. I’d be followed. This,” she pointed at the window, “is all we have. And now everyone will see the window’s out, if they haven’t already. You could have just knocked at the window.”
He shook his head. “No one will see from four floors down. We’re
