“Yes,” says Biswal. “How did you manage to spot it, Turyin?”
“Sheer chance,” says Mulaghesh. “It’s a long walk back down to the city, and, ah, no lavatories along the way.” She hopes this sounds believable: she’s certainly not willing to tell them she miraculously received this memory down in the mines.
“Ah,” says Biswal. “I see.”
“And you just happened to spot it?” asks Nadar.
“I tripped over it, frankly. Once I was here I came in to look at that.” She nods at the scarred stone. “Whatever the hells that is.”
“Another damned relic,” says Nadar.
Nadar and Mulaghesh squat to help Pandey out of the tunnel. He rises, dusts himself off—a useless gesture, considering the amount—and nods at them. “Thank you, Captain, General.”
“How long do you think it took to make this thing?” Mulaghesh asks. She squats to peer inside. “Half a year? More? It’s no shallow hole in the ground, I’ll tell you that.”
“True. What are you getting at, Turyin?” asks Biswal.
“I’m just saying this took a long time to make,” she says. “And I don’t think they made it to be used once, to drop off one bomb. You saw those support beams in there, didn’t you, Pandey?”
“I did, ma’am.”
“This is a serious undertaking. They basically built their own mine, in secret, underneath our noses! And they built it to last.” She peers down into the darkness of the tunnel. “Whoever made this wanted frequent access to what we were doing down there, I think.”
Nadar can barely suppress her scoff. “Why would they want that, General?”
“I don’t know. But I wonder if that’s why we found thinadeskite at the murder scene in Ghevalyev, which took place months ago. They took it directly from the mines themselves.”
“But again, General—why would they want that?”
“Why would they murder those farmers? Why would they blow up the mines, as you suggested? I don’t hear anyone proposing any motivations for those two crimes.”
“The reason is clear to me, General,” says Nadar. “They are savages. They seek to harm everyone that opposes them, ma’am, however they can. They think no more than that.”
Mulaghesh stands. “Captain, you’ve had three serious security breaches in the past months,” she says. “Someone stole explosives from you, someone stole extremely sensitive experimental materials from you, and now someone’s dug a hole into your mine shaft a quarter mile from your secured site. And you still have no idea who’s behind any of it! If anyone here isn’t thinking, Captain, it’s not the Voortyashtanis.”
Captain Nadar opens her mouth, furious. Before she can speak, Biswal leaps in. “That’s enough, Captain. I will stop you there before you say something insubordinate. You are dismissed.”
Nadar looks back and forth between the two of them before giving a ferocious salute, turning on her heel, and marching back to the fortress.
Biswal nods to Pandey and says, “You too, Sergeant Major.”
“Yes, sir.” Pandey salutes and sprints through the trees after Nadar.
Biswal looks at Mulaghesh with the air of a man who has heard his quota of bullshit for today and is all too unwilling to hear any more. “You, Turyin, are riling up the natives. I wouldn’t mind so much if I didn’t have to live with them.”
“Your captain might be an excellent officer, Biswal, but she’s still biased and single-minded. How long has she been rattling her saber in your ear, begging you to go after the shtanis?”
“She’s not the only one,” says Biswal. “It’s the opinion of many of my advisers that we cannot be diplomatic with the insurgents.”
Mulaghesh nods at the scarred stone behind them. “But you can’t look at that and tell me that isn’t the product of something Divine.”
A pause.
“You think…You think this all has something to do with the Divine?” Biswal looks at her side-eyed, as if waiting for the punchline. “That the Divine is still possible here, in Voortya’s backyard, the one Divinity we’re sure is dead?”
Mulaghesh can’t tell him the truth, she knows that. But if she can get him to request backup from the Ministry, there’s a chance she could get more resources behind her investigation. “I think someone thinks they’re doing something Divine. Ritually mutilated corpses, with thinadeskite sitting next to them—and now we find a tunnel to the thinadeskite mines, in the shadow of that bizarre totem there. Whoever made this tunnel, I think, did not want the mines to collapse. They had free access to the thinadeskite—for unknown purposes, sure, but there’s plenty of unknowns when it comes to the Divine. Maybe this stuff was considered miraculous to them once. And even though now we know it’s no longer miraculous—you’ve tested it, after all—maybe they’re just choosing to act like it is, going through the motions. But I can’t get your captain to consider anything besides the insurgents.”
Biswal sighs deeply. He shuts his eyes, and she sees there’s something starved to his face now, as if all his worries have scored away layers of his flesh. Then he squats and sits on the ground, groaning as his lower vertebrae rebel. “Come on. Let’s take a seat.”
“Um. Okay.” Mulaghesh sits beside him.
He reaches into his pocket and takes out a flask. “I think I might have actually funded some piracy, buying this,” he says. “Rice wine.”
“What brand?”
“Cloud Story.”
Mulaghesh whistles. “Shit. I only ever drank that twice, and both times it was my birthday.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“Same person each time. Me.”
He hands her the flask. The rice wine is like milky gold, and it makes her head thrum pleasantly. “Better than I remember.”
“It’s your palate. You’re too used to the shit food and shit drink we get up here. It could be boat fuel and it’d still taste like a prized vintage.” He sighs again and looks at her. “Nadar is not alone in mistrusting the shtanis. Other officers have lost friends and comrades here. We’re in a war, Turyin. Maybe the first of many, as the Continent grows stronger. Ghaladesh might not want to admit it. The prime minister might not want to admit it. But the shtanis are fine with doing so. And someone in command must have the courage to admit it as well.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve seen some movements from the insurgents. Watching us, trying to find weaknesses. They keep withdrawing whenever we respond.” He sighs. “But you don’t think that this”—he nods to the tunnel—“and the murders have anything to do with the insurgents?”
“Maybe not nothing. But not as much as Nadar wishes.”
“I must be insane. But I’m willing to let you keep following this lead, wherever it goes. You’ve found out a lot of things no one else has, Turyin. I just hope you don’t find something that brings ruin down on our heads.”
“Me, too.”
Biswal looks down at the bottle of wine. “I wonder who they’ll replace me with. When I catch my own bullet here.”