“It was, actually.” Tonkee comes back to the plinth and waves up the warning. This time she points at a symbol within the glowing red text: a solid black circle surrounded by a white octagon. You don’t know how you missed it before; it stands out from the red.
“I saw that mark in the Fulcrum, painted onto some of the light panels. You were too busy staring into the pit; I don’t think you saw. But I’ve been in maybe half a dozen obelisk-builder sites since, and that mark is always near something dangerous.” She’s watching you intently. “I find dead people near it sometimes.”
Inadvertently you think of Guardian Timay. Not found dead, but dead nevertheless, and you almost joined her that day. Then you remember a moment in the room without doors, near the edge of the yawning pit. You remember small needlelike protrusions from the walls of the pit… exactly like these bits of iron.
“The socket,” you murmur. That was what the Guardian called it. “A contaminant.” A prickle dances across the nape of your neck. Tonkee looks sharply at you.
“‘Something dangerous’ can mean any rusting thing,” says Hjarka, annoyed, as you stand there staring at the bits of rust.
“No, in this case it means a specific rusting thing.” Tonkee glares Hjarka down, which is impressive in itself. “It was the mark of their enemy.”
Fuck, you realize. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“What?” asks Ykka. “What in the Evil Earth are you talking about?”
“Their enemy.” Tonkee leans against the edge of the plinth—carefully, you note, but emphatically. “They were at war, don’t you understand? Toward the end, just before their civilization vanished into the dust. All their ruins, anything that’s left from that time, are defensive, survival-oriented. Like the comms of today—except they had a lot more than stone walls to help protect them. Things like giant rusting underground geodes. They hid in those places, and studied their enemy, and maybe built weapons to fight back.” She pivots and points up, at the upper half of the plinth crystal. It flickers just as she does so, obelisk-like.
“No,” you say automatically. Everyone turns to look at you, and you twitch. “I mean…” Shit. But you’ve said it now. “The obelisks aren’t…” You don’t know how to say it without telling the whole damned story, and you’re reluctant to do that. You’re not sure why. Maybe for the same reason that Antimony said, when Alabaster started to tell you: They aren’t ready. Now you need to finish in a way that won’t invite further comment. “I don’t think they’re defensive, or any sort of… weapon.”
Tonkee says nothing for a long moment. “What are they, then?”
“I don’t know.” It’s not a lie. You don’t know for sure. “A tool, maybe. Dangerous if misused, but not meant to kill.”
Tonkee seems to brace herself. “I know what happened to Allia, Essun.”
It’s an unexpected blow, and it floors you emotionally. Fortunately, you’ve spent your life training to deflect your reactions to unexpected blows in safe ways. You say, “Obelisks aren’t made to do that. That was an accident.”
“How do you—”
“Because I was connected to the rusting thing when it went into burndown!” You snap this so sharply that your voice echoes in the room and startles you into realizing how angry you are. One of the Strongbacks inhales and something in her gaze shifts and all at once you are reminded of the Strongbacks at Tirimo, who looked at you the same way when Rask asked them to let you go through the gate. Even Ykka’s watching you in a way that wordlessly says, You’re scaring the locals, calm the rust down. So you take a deep breath and fall silent.
(It is only later that you will recall the word you said during this conversation. Burndown. You will wonder why you said it, what it means, and you will have no answer.)
Tonkee lets out a deep breath, carefully, and this seems to speak for the room. “It’s possible I’ve made some wrong assumptions,” she says.
Ykka rubs a hand over her hair. It makes her head look incongruously small for a moment until it floofs back up. “All right. We already know Castrima was used as a comm before. Probably several times. If you’d asked me, instead of coming in here and acting like a rusting child, I could have told you that. I would have told you everything I knew, because I want to understand this place just as much as you do—”
Tonkee utters a single braying laugh. “None of you are smart enough for that.”
“—but by pulling this shit, you’ve made me mistrust you. I don’t let people I don’t trust do things that can hurt the people I love. So I want you out of here for good.”
Hjarka frowns. “Yeek, that’s kind of harsh, isn’t it?”
Tonkee tenses at once, her eyes going wide with horror, and hurt. “You can’t keep me out. Nobody else in this rusting comm has a clue what—”
“Nobody else in this rusting comm,” Ykka says, and now the Strongbacks look at her uneasily, because she’s nearly shouting, “would set us all on fire for the chance to study people who’ve been gone since the world was young. Somehow I’m getting the impression that you would.”
“Supervised visits!” Tonkee blurts. She looks desperate now.
Ykka steps up to her, getting right in her face, and Tonkee goes silent at once. “I would rather understand nothing about this place,” Ykka says, brutally quiet and cold now, “than risk destroying it. Can you say the same?”
Tonkee stares back at her, trembling visibly and saying nothing. But the answer’s obvious, isn’t it? Tonkee’s like Hjarka. Both were raised Leadership, raised to put the needs of others first, and both chose a more selfish path. It’s not even a question.
Which is why later, in retrospect, you really aren’t surprised at what happens next.
Tonkee turns and lunges and the red warning flashes and then one of the iron bits is in her fist. She’s already turning away by the time you register her grab. Bolting for the stair door. Hjarka gasps; Ykka’s just standing there, a little startled and mostly resigned; the two Strongbacks stare in confusion and then belatedly start after Tonkee. But then an instant later Tonkee gasps and stumbles to a halt. One of the Strongbacks grabs her arm—but drops it immediately when Tonkee yells.
You’re moving before you think. Tonkee is yours somehow—like Hoa, like Lerna, like Alabaster, as if in the absence of your children you’re trying to adopt everybody who touches you emotionally for even an instant. You don’t even like Tonkee. Still, your belly clenches when you grab her wrist and see that blood streaks her hand. “What the—”
Tonkee looks at you: quick, animal panic. Then she jerks and cries out again, and you almost let go this time because something moves under your thumb.
“The rust?” Ykka blurts. Hjarka’s hand claps over Tonkee’s arm, too, helping, because Tonkee’s strong in her panic. You master your inexplicable, violent revulsion enough to instead move your thumb and hold Tonkee’s wrist so that you can get a good look at it. Yes. There’s something moving just under her skin. It jumps and jitters, but moves inexorably upward, following the path of a large vein there. It’s just large enough to be the iron fragment.
“Evil Earth,” Hjarka says, throwing a quick worried look at Tonkee’s face. You fight sudden hysterical laughter at the unintentional irony of Hjarka’s oath.
“I need a knife,” you say instead. Your voice sounds remarkably calm to your own ears. Ykka leans over, sees what you’ve seen, and breathes an oath.
“Oh, fuck, rust, shit,” Tonkee moans. “Get it out! Get it out and I’ll never come in here again.” It’s a lie, but maybe she means it for the moment.
“I can bite it out.” Hjarka looks up at you. Her sharpened teeth are small razors.