An image slips into Mulaghesh’s mind: seven Voortyashtani sentinels standing in a line, hands resting on the pommels of their massive swords, the vast, strange, twisting oceanopolis of Voortyashtan behind them—the Voortyashtan of old, like some sort of massive coral reef alight with candlelight. The sentinels will watch this blood-drenched young man, and he will kneel in the gravel before them, head bowed, and await their decree.
But for now, there is only the boy, and the stag, and the trees, and the soft moonlight.
How do I know these things?
The darkness fades.
The fluttering orange light of an oil lamp flares to life above her.
Pandey is saying: “…imagine how they figured out eggs. I didn’t trust them, when I was a boy. I wanted no part of them.”
Mulaghesh realizes she is still walking. She never stopped. She blinks and looks ahead, and sees only more tunnels and more oil lamps—certainly no trees.
“But I do eat eggs now, ma’am,” Pandey adds. “Of course I do.”
She looks down at herself—she seems to be the same. And it appears Pandey didn’t notice anything. Did she imagine it all? She can’t conceive how she could have: Mulaghesh does not consider herself a very imaginative person, but even so, a vision with so much depth and memory in it—the feel of the wet grass, the drip of the honey, the strange cityscape of ancient Voortyashtan—should be beyond even the most brilliant poet.
What in all the hells is going on?
“Here we are,” says Pandey. He gestures ahead. Three Saypuri soldiers are grinding at the walls with what look like gas-powered drills, gunning their engines over and over as the wall dissolves and falls to a metal container at their feet. A few yards behind them is a massive wheelbarrow. Mulaghesh expected there to be a railcar, like a coal mine, but it looks like the thinadeskite mines aren’t quite that established.
“Gentlemen,” says Pandey, nodding to them. “The thinadeskite isn’t really a solid ore, we’ve found. It’s more like a particulate, ma’am, a dust found in the soft loam cavities. Very unusual. We hollow out the recesses, like you saw back there, and after that it’s simply a matter of separating out the thinadeskite from the loam.”
Mulaghesh is still attempting to control herself after the…What can she call it? A vision? She clears her throat. “How far do the mines go, Sergeant Major?”
“Quite far, ma’am,” says Pandey. “The thinadeskite is somewhat erratically spread throughout the area. We use some specialized magnetized materials to detect it, though, and to separate it from the powdered loam.”
“Mind if we keep looking?”
“Certainly, ma’am.”
It’s plain he thinks Mulaghesh will only see more stretches of blank, dull rock. Which she very well might, of course. But she’s curious to see if she can spot any remnant of Choudhry visiting this place—and, now, to try to understand what just happened to her.
“How much thinadeskite has been mined so far?” asks Mulaghesh.
“About sixty tons.”
“Sixty tons?”
“That’s correct, General.”
“They need to experiment with that much?”
“Oh, no,” says Pandey. “That’s for when the project gets approved. Lieutenant Prathda believes that when the thinadeskite passes all its tests we’ll start scaling up manufacturing capacities immediately. The thinadeskite is currently stored in a small warehouse facility at the fort. There it sits until Ghaladesh gives us the go-ahead, General.”
“No security issues there, either?” asks Mulaghesh.
“Not that I’m aware of. We don’t have many issues at the fort direc—”
Again, the light dies and the tunnel fades away.
No, thinks Mulaghesh.
There is the clatter of metal armor, the creak of leather.
Not again. This isn’t real….
The scent of jasmine and river water. The whisper and snicker of a nearby stream.
She sees soft daylight; tall, bright green grass massaged by gentle winds; and impossibly high trees.
She knows where she is immediately. She’s in Saypur, of course. No other place in the world has such trees, such dense foliage. But though she recognizes it, it’s again as if she remembers it, like she always knew these details.
Someone is walking through the grass. Though it is day—she knows it is day—the light is still indistinct enough that she can only make out the shape of the figure’s head: it’s oddly swollen, as if their skull is far too large….
The light in the vision grows. She sees the frozen metal face, the fixed needle-teeth grin, the blank eyes….
The Voortyashtani sentinel ripples with movement as it walks. It is difficult to tell if its armor is metal, or bone, or both. Spikes and spurs adorn the armor’s shoulders, elbows, and knees, as if a forest of antlers is sprouting from its limbs. In some places the armor is held together by thick leather straps; in others it appears to have been grown, melded together over its wearer’s body. It is covered in old stains, some brown, some red: blood, obviously, from some past slaughter.
She looks at the antler-like growths and understands immediately: Their armor fed on bloodshed. That’s how it grew around them, how it became so strong. And this one has fed its armor well.
The sentinel cocks its head, listening, then continues on.
How do I know these things?
For all the ornamentation upon its armor, the sentinel’s sword is clean and unadorned, a four-foot, slightly curved blade as thick as a cleaver. It must weigh over seventy pounds, but the sentinel carries it as if it’s a switch of wood.
Another sentinel approaches from the stream. Both of them are huge, over six and a half feet tall. She remembers that all Continentals were much taller when they lived under the Divinities, as they were much healthier and well-fed. As the second sentinel nears it holds its sword aloft. The first sentinel does the same. And then…
It’s difficult to say what happens next. Mulaghesh knows what is happening the same way she knows everything about this moment: it’s as if it personally happened to her, long ago, and she’s just now remembering it. But the sensation is so strange and so otherworldly that she could neither imagine nor truly express what it is.
The swords talk to one another.
This isn’t quite true: it’s more like the swords act as antennae for the two sentinels to speak. But they speak directly into one another’s minds, with the second sentinel asking the first:
—The escapees?
The first answers:
—Discovered two.
—Slain?
The two sentinels—still using the strange connection between their swords—then share a memory: two Saypuri slaves, sprinting through the jungle, a mother and her son. The first sentinel, charging through the undergrowth, hacking whole trees out of its way. The child stumbles, the mother stops to help. The massive blade rises high, and then…
The memory acts as an answer:
—Yes.
The second sentinel says:
—Third cannot be far.
—No. Cannot be.
The two abruptly turn and march back into the jungle, slashing through the branches as they search for their final missing slave.
The vision grows dark. The lamplight returns, as does Pandey’s voice, casually discussing the fort: