Shadows of Self (31 page)

“Take it up with the constable-general,” Wax said. “I’m sure you’ll be hearing from him soon. For now, I need a description of this carriage driver of yours, along with the names of any pets he owns.”

*   *   *

Marasi walked along a counter topped with a row of rifles, each accompanied by a domed steel helmet, a folded heavy jacket, and a box of ammunition. Rusts! She hadn’t realized the constabulary had access to these kinds of weapons.

“Well,” she said, looking back at MeLaan, “we’re ready if a koloss warlord decides to invade again.”

A pair of corporals, both men, were looking over each weapon to confirm it was in good repair. Though she spotted more than one pair of bleary eyes, the place was alive with activity. More and more constables were arriving, called in for extra duty. As they entered through the main doors they tended to stop as Marasi had, looking at the row of weapons. Perhaps that was why Aradel had ordered them set out like this. A quick visual reminder of how dangerous things were growing in the city.

Marasi rounded the front counter and entered the offices behind. A young woman corporal passed by, handing Marasi a warm cup of dark tea. It smelled strong, cooked down to increase the concentration of caffeine. She tried a sip.

Yup. Awful. She drank another sip anyway. She wasn’t going to embarrass herself by asking for honey when everyone else was chugging the stuff like it was some kind of contest. MeLaan trailed after her, looking around the room with interest. The voluptuous kandra drew glances. And, well, stares. It wasn’t often that a gorgeous, six-and-a-half-foot-tall woman strode into the constabulary offices clad in trousers and a tight shirt. She seemed to like the attention, judging by the way she smiled at the men they passed.

Of course she likes the attention,
Marasi thought.
Otherwise she wouldn’t have chosen a body so exquisitely proportioned.
It seemed blatant to Marasi. After all, technically MeLaan wasn’t even
human
.

“I didn’t expect to find women in uniform here,” MeLaan noted. “I’d assumed you to be an oddity.”

“The constabulary is very egalitarian,” Marasi said. “The Ascendant Warrior serves as a model for all women. You won’t find as many of us here as in, say, the solicitors’ offices, but it’s hardly considered an unfeminine profession.”

“Sure, sure,” MeLaan said, smiling at a young lieutenant as the two of them made their way to the back rooms, where the records office was. “But I’ve always found humans to be rather sexist. A natural result of your sexual dimorphism, VenDell says.”

“And kandra aren’t sexist?” Marasi said, blushing.

“Hmm? Well, considering that a male kandra you’re talking to today might decide to be a woman tomorrow, I’d say we have a different perspective on all that.”

Marasi blushed further. “Surely you’re exaggerating.”

“Not really. Wow, you blush easily, don’t you? I’d have thought you’d find this natural, considering that your God is basically a hermaphrodite at this point. Both good and evil, Ruin and Preservation, light and dark, male and female. Et cetera et cetera.”

They reached the doors to the records office and Marasi turned away to hide her blush. She really wished she’d just find a way to get over her embarrassment. “Harmony’s not my god. I’m a Survivorist.”

“Oh, yeah,” MeLaan said, “because
that
makes sense. Worship the guy who died, rather than the one who saved the world.”

“The Survivor transcended death,” Marasi said, looking back, hand on the door, but not entering. “He survived even being killed, adopting the mantle of the Ascendant during the time between Preservation’s death and Vin’s Ascension.”

Rust … was she arguing theology with a demigod?

MeLaan, however, just cocked her head. “What, really?”

“Um … yes. Harmony wrote of it
himself
in the Words of Founding, MeLaan.”

“Huh. I really ought to read that thing one of these days.”

“You haven’t…” Marasi blinked, trying to fathom a world where one of the Faceless Immortals didn’t know doctrine.

“I keep meaning to,” MeLaan said, shrugging. “Never can find the time.”

“You’re over six hundred years old.”

“That’s the thing about having an eternity, kid,” MeLaan said. “It gets
really
easy to procrastinate. Are we going in that room or not?”

Marasi sighed, pushing into a room filled with filing cabinets and tables piled high with ledgers and broadsheets. This was Aradel’s doing; he liked to keep his thumb on what people were saying and writing in the city. So far, he didn’t do much with the collection besides watch for reports of crimes his men had missed, but Marasi had plans.

Unfortunately, Constable Miklin—who ran the records office—was one of Reddi’s closest friends. As Marasi entered, Miklin and the other two people working there looked up, then immediately turned back to their files.

“Who’s the civilian?” Miklin asked from his desk in the corner. How
did
he get his hair to stand up straight like that? Almost like a patch of grass growing from a pot.

“Special investigator from another jurisdiction,” Marasi said. “Lord Ladrian sent her.”

Miklin sniffed. “I’m led to believe this wisp hunt is your doing? I barely got to the offices tonight before I was sent back here to dig up information on that dam breaking.”

“What did you find?” Marasi said eagerly, slipping between two large filing cabinets—he had them arranged like sentries—and stepping up to his desk.

“Nothing,” Miklin said. “Dead end. Waste of my time.”

“I’d like to see what you found anyway,” Marasi said. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

Miklin rested his hands on the table. He spoke softly. “Why are you here, Colms?”

“I thought Aradel told you,” Marasi said. “The dam breakage might—”

“Not that. Here. In the constabulary. You had an offer to join the octant’s senior prosecutor on a permanent basis, with a letter of commendation on your internship with him. I looked into it. And now … what? You suddenly want to chase criminals? Strap on some six-guns like you’re from the rusting Roughs? That’s not what police work is like.”

“I’m well aware,” Marasi said dryly. “But thank you for the information. What did you find?”

He sighed, then tapped a folder with the back of his hand. “Rusting waste of my time,” he muttered.

Marasi took the folder and retreated between the filing cabinets. She wished it were only Miklin she had to deal with, but the two other constables made their opinions known with quiet sniffs of disdain. Marasi felt them glaring at her as she led MeLaan out of the room, clutching her folder.

“Why do they treat you like that?” MeLaan asked as they slipped out.

“It’s complicated.”

“People tend to be. Why do you
let
them treat you like that?”

“I’m working on it.”

“You want me to do something?” MeLaan said. “I could scare the cynicism right out of those people, show them you’ve got friends that—”

“No!” Marasi said. “No, please. It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”

MeLaan followed her as she scurried to her desk outside of Aradel’s office. A lanky female constable stood there, one foot on Marasi’s chair, chatting with the man one desk over and sipping her tea. Marasi cleared her throat twice before the woman—Taudr was her name, wasn’t it?—finally looked at her, rolled her eyes, and moved out of the way.

Marasi settled down. MeLaan pulled over a chair. “You sure you don’t want me—”

“No,” Marasi said immediately, digging into the folder. She took a deep breath. “No, please.”

“I’m sure your friend Waxillium could come on over, fire off a few slugs, force them to stop being such sourlips.”

Oh, Survivor, no,
Marasi thought, the image of it making her sick. But MeLaan obviously wasn’t going to let this go without an explanation.

“I’m beginning to realize that Waxillium is part of the reason why they treat me as they do,” Marasi said, opening the folder Miklin had prepared. “Life in the precinct follows a hierarchy. The sergeants start as corporals, work the streets, put in ten or fifteen years doing a hard beat and finally earn a promotion. The captains start out as lieutenants, and mostly come from noble stock. Once in a while, a sergeant works his or her way up. But everyone’s expected to put in their time at the bottom.”

“And you…”

“I skipped all that,” Marasi said. “I applied for—and got—an important position as Aradel’s chief aide. Waxillium makes that worse, as I’m associated with him. He’s like a whirlwind, blowing through and messing everything up. But he’s also good at what he does and a high-ranking nobleman, so nobody complains too loudly. I, however…”

“Not noble.”

“Not noble enough,” Marasi said. “My father is low-ranked, and I’m illegitimate. That makes me the available target, when Waxillium is off-limits.”

MeLaan leaned back in her chair and scanned the room. “Spook was always droning on about things like this—that bloodline shouldn’t matter as much as capability. You doing what you did should be impressive to everyone, not threatening. Hell, you said the place was egalitarian.”

“It is,” Marasi said. “That’s why I could get the job in the first place. But it doesn’t stop people from resenting me. I’m the way the world is changing, MeLaan, and change is frightening.”

“Huh,” the kandra said. “And the lower ranks just go along with this? You think they’d like you showing that someone can jump in line.”

“You don’t know a lot about human nature, do you?”

“Of course I do. I’ve studied, and imitated, dozens of people.”

“I suspect you understand individuals, then,” Marasi said. “The interesting thing about people is that while they might seem unique, they actually play into broad patterns. Historically, the working class has often been
more
resistant to change than the class oppressing them.”

“Really?” MeLaan asked.

Marasi nodded. She started to reach for some books on the small shelf beside her desk, but stopped. This wasn’t the time. In fact, they might be witnessing one of the exceptions to this rule, outside on the streets. And, like many upendings of the status quo, when it
did
happen, it could be violent. Like a steam engine’s boiler that had been plugged up, given no release until suddenly … everything exploded.

Nobody liked to realize they’d been had. People in Elendel believed they were living the good life—they’d been told all their lives that Harmony had blessed them with a rich and lavish land of bounty. You could listen to that sort of talk only so long before starting to wonder why all the incredible orchards were owned by someone else, while you had to work long hours just to feed your children.

Marasi dug into the contents of the folder, which listed the events surrounding the flooding to the east. MeLaan settled back in her seat. What a curious creature she was, sitting with head held high, meeting the glances of people who passed without the least concern about what anyone thought of her.

Miklin was annoying, but he hadn’t let his displeasure undermine his work, which was meticulous and thorough. He’d included constable reports on the dam breakage, a piece written by the engineer who had investigated the problem, and broadsheet clippings from Elendel regarding the disaster.

Most importantly, there was a transcript of the recent trial and execution of the farmer who had caused the flood. He claimed he’d wanted to ruin his neighbor’s harvest in an “accident.” But the saboteur had packed too much dynamite, and had blown a hole in the dam large enough to cause the entire thing to fail. Dozens dead, and crops destroyed throughout the region, causing grain shortages.

The defense had called witnesses who claimed that the saboteur, a man named Johnst, had been acting erratically. They claimed he was obviously mad. And the more she read, the more Marasi was convinced he
was
mad—if only because Bleeder was.

“Look at this,” Marasi said, handing a sheet to MeLaan.

The kandra took it and read, then grunted. “He couldn’t remember the names of his children at the trial?”

“Seems like good evidence that Johnst had been replaced, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes and no,” MeLaan said. “The old guard, they are
really
good at interrogating people and doing research before taking a new form. We don’t have to do that so much anymore—most of the forms we take are personas we’ve made up ourselves. If this
was
Bleeder, she must have been pressed for time.” MeLaan pointed at a section farther down the page. “This is much better proof, if you ask me.”

Marasi scooted over, looking at the paragraphs indicated.

Report of the execution. Prisoner was hanged until dead. Rejected a final meal, and demanded it be “over with quickly.” Grave desecrated two nights later; suspected to be the work of those who lost family in the flood.

“Wow,” Marasi said, taking the paper back. She hadn’t reached that section yet. “Yeah. Escaping the grave, eh? She actually let them
bury
her?”

“Undoubtedly,” MeLaan said. “Paalm is nothing if not dedicated to her craft.”

“Then why forget the names of the children?”

MeLaan shook her head. “No idea.”

Either way, this seemed to be enough to take to Aradel. “Come on,” she said.

15