“What if she did it over time?” says Mulaghesh. “Bloodletting every couple of weeks?”
“Still quite difficult, I would imagine,” says Sigrud. “A lot of recovery time needed. Either way, that doesn’t fix our problem. How are we to do this? I suppose you and I could do it, Turyin, but that wouldn’t be an easy thing to split between us.”
“What if you could split it three ways?” says Signe.
“That might work,” says Sigrud, “but who would be our third?”
“I would,” says Signe.
“You wo…” Sigrud slows and comes to a stop as he processes what Signe said. “You…You would?”
She meets his gaze. “I would. Yes. I would be able to.”
Sigrud stares at his daughter for a long time, his face a mix of confusion and anguish as he comes to understand what his daughter is saying. “I did not know.”
“I know,” she says. “And…I know there’s a lot I don’t know about you.” She puts a hand on his shoulder.
Sigrud looks at her hand and then at her, his one eye blinking rapidly. “If the world had been different.”
“If it had been, yes. But it wasn’t.”
“I hate to interrupt, but,” says Mulaghesh, coughing awkwardly, “split between three—that should be doable, yes?”
“Maybe,” says Signe. “It’s still a lot. And you’d still be going through into the City of Blades weakened. You’re already exhausted, I can tell. Are you sure you still want to try?”
“No, I definitely fucking don’t want to try,” says Mulaghesh. “But I don’t see another way. You’d better swing by the SDC infirmary, because we’re going to need some bloodletting tools.”
“Why not just get Rada Smolisk to help us?” asks Signe. “She’s a doctor.”
“Because I don’t want anyone else knowing about this beyond us. Doing this would mean taking her to the yard of statues. That’s not safe by a long shot. I know some field medicine, so that should be enough—at least, I hope it will be enough.”
“So do I,” says Sigrud.
***
Evening is falling as Sigrud and Mulaghesh wait in the yard of statues. Despite Mulaghesh’s recent interactions with the Divine, they’ve still lost none of their menace: the countless carvings and alien forms disturb her even when she’s not looking at them, like they turn to watch her when she’s not looking.
The basin to her left is filled with cold seawater, hauled up bucket by bucket by SDC workers. Mulaghesh has already been to the apothecary shop and paid what felt like a few months’ salaries for the reeking, shriveled reagents: rosemary, pine needles, dried worms, grave dust, dried frog eggs, and bone powder, not to mention the sackcloth. Mulaghesh is pretty sure the apothecary sensed her desperation and overcharged her.
Voortya’s pale white face hangs just over Mulaghesh’s shoulder. She tries to ignore it. She especially tries to ignore how the face seems to be looking into the basin of seawater, where Mulaghesh herself will likely be going very shortly, if all goes to plan. She’s outfitted herself with her carousel and a rifling, though she’s very aware that, if the other sentinels are at all like Zhurgut, these armaments won’t make a dent in them. She’s packed a decent field medical kit as well, though again, from seeing what Zhurgut did to the Dreylings, she doubts she’d be able to self-apply much after tangling with a sentinel. Her primary strategy is to move as undetected as possible. Though in the situation that she is detected, she’s also brought four grenades, but she’s a little reticent to use them: hand grenades are far easier to operate when the user possesses both hands.
“I’m getting antsy,” she says. “Where’s your daughter? I don’t want to try to bleed myself unless I have the right tools.”
“She’ll be here. One question on my mind, though, is what do you plan to do once you get to this City of Blades?”
“Find Choudhry. Find out how the Night of the Sea of Swords works. Then find out how to stop it.”
Sigrud thinks about it, then shakes his head. “You have picked up Shara’s ability,” he says, “to produce elaborate plans that happen to lack the most important part.”
“Well, what the hells do you suggest?”
“Me? Blow it up. Bring explosives over there and mine the place. Then…Ktch.” He mimes pushing down a plunger. “Boom.”
“You want me to blow up the afterlife.”
Sigrud shrugs. “It worked for me in Bulikov.”
The metal door squeaks open and Signe walks in, a small leather satchel hanging from her shoulder. When she sees them she nods and breaks into a run. “Biswal is coming,” she says breathlessly.
“Eh?” says Mulaghesh. “Retreating from the highlands already?”
“No, Biswal is coming, and he’s on the warpath. More so than when he left, I mean. He’s making a beeline for here, though I’ve no idea why—though the rumor has it he’s heard about, well…” She glances around at the statues. “This.”
“He knows about the yard of statues?” says Mulaghesh. “How in hells could that have happened?”
“Didn’t someone infiltrate this place just days ago?” says Sigrud. “After Zhurgut?”
“Yeah…But…You think whoever is trying to start the Night of the Sea of Swords is behind the tip-off?” asks Mulaghesh. “Why would they go to Biswal all of the sudden? They haven’t exactly behaved lawfully so far.”
“Well, it certainly is fucking us over right now, isn’t it?” asks Signe, furious. “If that was their goal, then they are wildly succeeding. What are we going to do?”
“The same thing we were going to do before,” says Mulaghesh. “Only now we’ll need to hurry. If Biswal gets here we’ll never get the chance to try this again.”
“You still want to move ahead with your plan, General?” asks Signe.
“I don’t have a choice. Are you with me?”
Signe and Sigrud glance at each other. Then, finally, they nod.
“Good,” says Mulaghesh. “Roll up your sleeves.”
Mulaghesh does Sigrud first—she knows he probably won’t show any pain, so he’s a good practice subject before moving on to Signe—and soon she has three needles with three tubes spurting out viscous blood into the basin of seawater.
“So…you go over there,” says Signe, “wherever there is. And what do we do if you don’t come back?”
“If I don’t come back, then the apocalypse happens,” says Mulaghesh. “And if that happens, you and your dad here need to evacuate everyone in Voortyashtan.”
Sigrud nods. “Once you’re over there, I will go to the lighthouse and coordinate.”
“How’s your arm?”
“Painful. But mobile. It will do. Much like your hip. We ask much of our bodies.”
They stand around the basin, staring at the muddy red waters.
“So…how do we know when it’s done?” asks Sigrud, watching the arrhythmic gush of his own blood. “I frankly would like to have this thing out of me as soon as possible.”
“You’re the Voortyashtani, Signe,” says Mulaghesh. “You tell me.”