strong, she might send him toppling over.
But of course he knew that. She could tell by the easy confidence with which he moved. He knew she couldn’t —or wouldn’t—do any such thing.
“Do you like your quarters?” he asked.
“Very much,” she replied. “You are very generous.”
“I’ve elevated you,” he said. “Things are better here. I think you will find your work more enjoyable, more stimulating.”
He turned and walked to a small table furnished with two chairs.
“Sit,” he said. “Join me.”
She complied, and a slight man in a vest with many buttons brought them a drink that hissed and fizzed and was mostly vapor. It tasted like mint, sage, and orange peel and was nearly intolerably cold.
“Now,” Toel said. “Tell me about this place you are from.”
“Lord?”
“What is it like, how was your life there? What did you do? That sort of thing.”
She wondered at first why she felt so surprised, but then it occurred to her that no one—not even Slyr—had ever asked her about her life before coming to Umbriel—not unless it concerned her knowledge of plants and minerals.
“There’s not much left of it, I think,” she said.
“No, I imagine not. And yet some of it lives in you yet, yes? And in Umbriel.”
“You mean because their souls were consumed here?”
“Not merely consumed,” he replied. “Mostly, yes, Umbriel must use living energy to remain aloft and functioning. But some of it is cycled, transformed, reborn—it’s not all lost. Take solace in that, if you can. If you cannot, it’s no matter to me, really, but a waste of your time and energy.”
“You think grieving a waste?”
“What else could it be? Anger, fear, ecstasy—these states of mind might produce something useful. Grief and regret produce nothing except bad poetry, which is actually worse than nothing. Now. Speak of what I asked you.”
She closed her eyes, trying to decide where to start, what to say. She didn’t want to tell him anything that might help Umbriel and its masters.
“My home was in a city called Lilmoth,” she said. “In the Kingdom of Black Marsh. I lived with my father. He was—”
Toel held up a finger. “Pardon me,” he said. “What is a father?”
“Maybe I used the wrong word,” she said. “I’m still learning this dialect.”
“Yes. I know of no such word.”
“My father is the man who sired me.”
Again the blank stare.
She shifted and held her hand up, palms facing each other.
“Ah, a man and woman, they, ahh … procreate—”
“Yes,” Toel said. “That can be very entertaining.”
She felt her face warm and nodded.
“You think so, too, I see. Very interesting. So a father is the man you used to procreate with?”
“No. Oh, no. That would be—no. I mean I’ve never—” She shook her head and started again. “A man and woman—my father and mother—they procreated and had me.”
“‘Had you’?”
“I was born to them.”
“You’re not making sense, dear.”
“After they procreated, I was conceived, and I grew in my mother until I was born.”
He sat back, and for the first time she saw his eyes flash with real astonishment. It looked very strange on him, as if he had never been surprised at anything.
“Do you mean to say that you were inside of a woman? And came out of her?”
“Yes.”
“Like a parasite—like a Zilh worm or chest borer?”
“No, it’s normal, it’s—weren’t you …?”
“That’s revolting!” he said, and laughed. “Absolutely revolting. Did you eat her corpse after you came out?”
“Well, it didn’t kill her.”
“How big were you?”
She shaped her hands to indicate the size of a newborn.
“Well, I have to say, this is already one of the most interesting—and disturbing—conversations I’ve ever had.”
“Then you people aren’t born?”
“Of course we are. Properly, from the Marrow Sump.”
“So when you use the word ‘procreate’—”
“It simply means sex. Copulation. It has no other sense, that I know of.”
Annaig suddenly felt the world rearranging itself around her. She had been assuming that all the talk about coming from the sump and returning to it was a metaphor, a way of talking about life and death.
But Toel wasn’t kidding, she was sure of that.
“Please, go on. Tell me more such disgusting things.”
And so they talked on. After his initial outburst, however, he did not interrupt her much; he listened, with only the occasional question, usually concerning terms he didn’t know. She talked mostly about her life in Black Marsh, about history, about the secession of Black Marsh from the Empire and the subsequent collapse of the Empire. She did not say anything about the revival of the Empire, about the Emperor or Attrebus—but it was a challenge, because the way he listened, the way he hung on her every word, made her want to keep talking, to not let it stop, to keep that attention on her forever.
When she finally forced herself to stop, he steepled his fingers under his lip. Then he nodded out at his world.
“You speak of vast forests and deserts, of countries whose size almost surpasses my imagination. I have never walked such lands—I never will. This, Umbriel, is the only world I can ever know. This, Umbriel, is your home now, and the only place you will ever know again. The sooner you understand that, the better. Waste no time on what you have lost, for you will never have it again.”
“But my world is all around you,” she said. “I could take you there, show it to you …”
He shook his head. “It is not so simple. The outside of Umbriel, in a sense, is in your world. But here, where you find yourself now—surely you observed the larvae, saw how they lose corporeal form when they move fully into your plane. The same would be true of me, were I to leave. My body would dissolve, and Umbriel would reclaim the stuff of my soul. There is no leaving for me. Or you.”
“But I am not from Umbriel,” she said. “I am not a part of it.”
“Not yet,” Toel said. “But in time you will be as much a part of Umbriel as I am.”
THREE
The man who had named himself Captain Evernal stepped from behind the tent. He was fortyish, with tanned skin, blond hair, and an impressive mustache.
Attrebus could see twenty men, but he suspected there were more.
“What’s this?” Sul asked.
Evernal shrugged. “That depends on your business here.”
“We have no business here,” Sul replied.
“You’re a mile off the main road.”
“Is that a crime?”
“It isn’t,” Evernal said. “But it suggests you were coming to this camp, since there isn’t anything else in this direction.”
