Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

They meant nothing to him. Equations, long rambling paragraphs, geometry – there was even a star chart buried beneath a stack of reference cards. The notes appeared to be in at least four different handwritings, one of which looked awfully like the writing in the book where Michel had found the lot number for this camp.

He’d never been to an archeological dig, but he’d always imagined them far more orderly and severe – this looked like a professor’s desk had just exploded. He cleared his throat again, loudly, and the man finally looked up, his eyes widening at the presence of another person in the room.

“Good afternoon,” Michel said.

“Who are you?”

Michel pulled the Gold Rose out of his shirt and let it dangle for a moment before returning it.

“Ah.” The man nodded happily, as if Michel’s visit were as normal as the heat. He crossed the room, snatching Michel’s hand and shaking it, leaving Michel’s fingers covered in ink smudges. “Professor Cressel. So good to meet you. You’re here to review our work?” He gestured across the seemingly endless stacks of paper. “I’m afraid it’s a little unorganized, but I tell you this is all very exciting!”

“Professor,” Michel said coolly, “I’m not here to review your work. Just the, uh, excavation site.”

“Of course, of course,” Cressel responded. “I’m afraid I’m not Privileged Robson, but the Privileged was called back to the city rather suddenly.” Cressel squinted at Michel curiously, then waved it off as if what was going on back in Landfall was of no real consequence. “Things are going swimmingly here, however. The madness takes a few more people every day, but the monolith is almost entirely unearthed. We’ve been prepping the move for weeks and should be ready within days.”

Michel tried to wrap his head around all the information and mentally ticked through what he knew: This was an archeological site of some kind; it was heavily guarded against outsiders; and something very important was located in the pit at the center of the camp. Michel’s mouth was suddenly dry as he considered the implications.

“Where do you plan on moving it?” he asked faintly.

Cressel seemed surprised by the question. He tilted his head. “Dalinport, I believe. We need someplace better to conduct our experiments than the middle of farmland!” He scowled to himself, jotted a few things down on a scrap of paper, then smiled back at Michel.

Michel slowly sidled toward the window on the far side of the room, moving a box of papers out of his way before leaning to get a look outside.

About fifty yards away, perfectly framed by two mounds of excavated dirt, was an immense pit. In the center rose an obelisk, perhaps twenty feet above the ground and surrounded by scaffolding, with old men and women in suits clambering all over the face of it – taking impressions, writing down notes, and sometimes standing and staring as if they’d been overcome by something unseen.

Michel heard a whisper in the back of his head, like the sound of a curtain being drawn aside, and turned toward Cressel. The professor seemed oblivious, his nose back in his notes.

Michel licked his lips, squinting at the obelisk. He heard the whisper again, but ignored it. Was this the very godstone Taniel was looking for? For some reason Michel had envisioned something… smaller – something easily moved, like the size of a bread box. He remembered that Taniel had used the plural when he spoke of the godstones.

“Are there any others?” Michel asked.

Cressel looked up. “Hmm?”

“Any other go –” Michel caught himself. “Any other stones like this?”

“I don’t believe so,” Cressel said, though he seemed immediately caught up in the idea. “Could you imagine, though? We’ve already learned so much from this one, if there were more…” He trailed off, fiddling with his pencil, and turned back to his notes.

“Imagine,” Michel murmured to himself, looking back out the window. The whispering grew louder, and he was certain now he wasn’t imagining it. “Do you hear anything?”

“Oh, that’s just the artifact. It talks sometimes.”

Every hair on the back of Michel’s neck stood up on end. He wanted to grab Cressel and shake him, demanding whether he really thought it was normal for an inanimate object to talk. He leaned closer to the window, pressing his nose against the glass, and stared. Whatever this thing was – it did not seem friendly. He scratched at his arm, feeling like the whispers were crawling beneath his skin.

“The madness?” he asked.

“Oh,” Cressel said, unconcerned, “it just takes the laborers. We keep our researchers on a strict regimen. No more than two hours beside the monolith at any time.”

Michel’s eye twitched. This was not normal. Every sense screamed for him to flee, to get away from this thing. He focused on the laborers moving around beside the pit and noted the harried, sleepless looks on their faces, the wide-eyed stares. They felt it, too, but they had no choice but to work. Hence, he decided, the army.

“Would you like a tour of the excavation?” Cressel asked cheerfully.

“No thank you.” Michel headed for the door. He had to tell Taniel about this. And he had to get as far from it as possible if he was ever going to sleep again.

“I don’t know how you’re doing it,” Vlora said, “and I don’t want to know. But I won’t talk to you while you’re wearing someone else’s face.”

She sat across from Tampo in the hackney cab, studying the unfamiliar face. This was Taniel; she knew it was. She should have known the moment they talked last week in the Yellow Hall but that face was too different and strange.

Over the years she’d seen sorcery the likes of which most Privileged could only dream, but she’d never witnessed anything like this. Her skin crawled, stomach turning. She should have been able to sense a fellow powder mage. She should have been able to feel the sorcery that hid his face in the Else.

She could do neither.

“Vlora,” Tampo began in a gentle, reprimanding tone of voice that she’d heard a thousand times when they were teenage lovers.

“I’m serious,” she snapped, trying not to throw up.

Tampo snorted, turning toward the window. “This isn’t like putting on a mask,” he said. “It takes hours to put back.”

“I don’t care.”

“Damn it, Vlora…” Several moments passed before he finally put his face in his hands and drew them downward, like a man washing his face in the basin first thing in the morning. When his fingers withdrew his face had altered, a series of subtle changes to his eyes, cheekbones, chin, and nose that left him a different man; Taniel Two-shot, hero of the Fatrastan Revolution and Adran-Kez War. Godkiller.

Vlora opened the cab door and vomited onto the passing cobbles.

She straightened, wiping her mouth, the taste of bile on her tongue, then ran a hand through her hair to find she was sweating horribly. That’s out of the way, she told herself. You’ve seen strange things before. Why does this bother you so much? She forced herself to examine Taniel closely, searching his face. This was definitely him.

“You haven’t aged,” she said.

“A side effect of Ka-poel’s sorcery,” Taniel said.

Taniel drew a pair of black gloves from his pocket and pulled them on over his fingers, drawing Vlora’s attention to his left hand. The hand must have also been hidden behind this glamouring sorcery, because it was now smooth and hairless, the skin the color of fresh blood. Vlora snorted, hardly allowing herself to be surprised. “You’re the Red Hand?” she asked.