Page 68 of A Drop of Corruption

It took the better part of two hours, but I answered all their questions—especially when it came to the vine-people we discovered. Thelenai questioned me extensively on them, and on all the objects we found within their forms.

Finally we came to the wall of growth about the camp and the clearing.

“And what kinds of plants composed this growth?” Thelenai asked, her voice now faint.

I answered, rattling off all the shapes of the leaves and vines I’d witnessed. The room echoed with the sounds of scribblings as the many Apoths took down notes with their ashpens.

“And when you entered this…wall,” said Thelenai, “you saw much changed within. Yes?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

A long pause.

“But at the center was some…device,” Thelenai said. “An engineered system. That is what the others have told us—is that correct?”

“It is, ma’am. It was a thing of pots and pipes.”

Thelenai nodded slowly. I sensed that her next question was of tremendous importance.

“Now…retrieve that memory for me, please, Kol. Look at this thing carefully, in your mind. Do you have it?”

My eyes shimmered. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Now, please…describe this system to m—”

Then came a sharp, ear-ringing knock at the doors.

Everyone in the room jumped, save Malo and her wardens, who’d apparently heard the person coming.

We all stared at one another, then Thelenai. No one moved.

Another sharp knock came, repeating five times now.

“I…I told them we weren’t to…” sputtered Thelenai. “Damn it, whoever that is, send them away!”

One of the Apoth militii sprang up, slipped through the doors, shut them behind him, and engaged whoever had knocked. I heard a voice respond, giving a sharp retort that quickly grew to thundering invective.

I quickly cleared my face of all emotion—for I recognized that voice.

“That…” muttered Malo next to me, “that is your immunis, Kol.”

“I am aware,” I hissed out the side of my mouth.

Thelenai stewed in her seat as the shouting outside continued, her icy poise melting away. Then the shouting abruptly stopped; there was a silence; and then came a smattering of gasps and chuckles from the wardens seated behind me.

Malo raised a hand, silencing them, and awkwardly cleared her throat. “Ah—Commander-Prificto?”

“Yes?” said Thelenai, irritated. “What is it? What is the matter with your people, Signum?”

“She has…told me to do something,” said Malo.

“She what? Who? Who do you mean?”

“I mean, the person out there…” She cleared her throat again. “She must have guessed I am in here, ma’am, and that I can hear her. So. She has told me to ask Din—I mean, Kol here—a question.”

Thelenai gaped. “Shewhat?”

“She has told me…” For a third time, Malo cleared her throat. “She said—Malo, ask Din if the instruments he saw in the jungle looked like a whole lot of pots stacked on top of one another, and if the one on top had a glass lid with a chimney, and a little wire fiddly bit inside it.”