Edgedancer 

12

WYNDLE’S vines wove up the side of an alleyway, and Lift climbed, not caring if she drew attention. She hauled herself over the top edge into a field where farmers watched the sky and grumbled. The seasons had gone insane. It was supposed to be raining constantly—a bad time to plant, as the water would wash away the seed paste.

Yet it hadn’t rained for days. No storms, no water. Lift walked along, passing farmers who spread paste that would grow to tiny polyps, which would eventually grow to the size of large rocks and fill to bursting with grain. Mash that grain—either by hand or by storm—and it made new paste. Lift had always wondered why she didn’t grow polyps inside her stomach after eating, and nobody had ever given her a straight answer.

The confused farmers worked with their shiquas pulled up to their waists. Lift passed, and she tried to listen. To hear.

This was supposed to be their one time of year where they didn’t have to work. Sure, they planted some treb to grow in cracks, as it could survive flooding. But they weren’t supposed to have to plant lavis, tallew, or clema: much more labor-intensive—but also more profitable—crops to cultivate.

Yet here they were. What if it rained tomorrow, and washed away all this effort? What if it never rained again? The city cisterns, which were glutted with water from the weeks of Weeping, would not last forever. They were so worried, she caught sight of some fearspren—shaped like globs of purple goo—gathering around the mounds upon which the men planted.

As a counterpoint, lifespren broke off from the growing polyps and bobbed over to Lift, trailing in her wake. A swirling, green-glowing dust. Ahead of her, the Grand Indicium rose like the head of a bald man seen peeking above the back of the chair he was sitting in. It was a huge rounded mass of stone.

Everything in the city revolved around this central point. Streets turned in this direction, curling up to it, and as Lift drew close, she could see that an enormous swath of stone had been cut away around the Indicium. The round bunker wasn’t much to look at, but it sure did seem secure from the storms.

“Yes, the land does slope away from this central point,” Wyndle noted. “This focus had to be the highest point of the city anyway—and I guess they figured they’d just accept that, and make the central knob into a fortress.”

A fortress for books. People could be so strange. Below, crowds of people—most of them Tashikki—flowed in and out of the building, which had numerous screwlike sloped walkways leading up to it.

Lift settled down on the edge of the wall, feet hanging over. “Kinda looks like the tip of some guy’s dangly bits. Like some fellow had such a short sword, everyone felt so sorry for him they said, ‘Hey, we’ll make a huge statue to it, and even though it’s tiny, it’ll look real big!’”

Wyndle sighed.

“That wasn’t crude,” Lift noted. “That was being poetic. Ol’ Whitehair said you can’t be crass, so long as you’re talkin’ ’bout art. Then you’re being elegant. That’s why it’s okay to hang pictures of naked ladies in a palace.”

“Mistress, wasn’t this the man who got himself intentionally swallowed by a Marabethian greatshell?”

“Yup. Crazy as a box full of drunk minks, that one. I miss him.” She liked to pretend he hadn’t actually gotten eaten. He’d winked at her as he’d jumped into the greatshell’s gaping maw, shocking the crowd.

Wyndle piled around on himself, forming a face—eyes made of crystals, lips formed of a tiny network of vines. “Mistress, what is our plan?”

“Plan?”

He sighed. “We need to get into that building. Are you just going to do whatever strikes you?”

“Obviously.”

“Might I offer some suggestions?”

“Long as it doesn’t involve sucking someone’s soul, Voidbringer.”

“I’m not— Look, mistress, that building is an archive. Knowing what I do of this region, the rooms in there will be filled with laws, records, and reports. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them.”

“Yeah,” she said, making a fist. “Among all that, they’ll have written down strange stuff for sure!”

“And how, precisely, are we going to find the specific information we want?”

“Easy. You’re gonna read it.”

“… Read it.”

“Yup. We’ll get in there, you’ll read their books and stuff, and then we’ll decide where strange events were. That will lead us to Darkness’s lunch.”

“… Read it all.”

“Yup.”

“Do you have any idea how much information is likely held in that place?” Wyndle said. “There will be hundreds of thousands of reports and ledgers. And to state it explicitly, yes, that’s a number more than ten, so you can’t count to it.”

“I’m not an idiot,” she snapped. “I got toes too.”

“It’s still far more than I can read. I can’t sift through all of that information for you. It’s impossible. Not going to happen.”

She eyed him. “All right. Maybe I can get you one soul. Perhaps a tax collector…’cept they ain’t human. Would they work? Or would you need, like, three of them to make up one normal person’s soul?”

“Mistress! I’m not bargaining!”

“Come on. Everyone knows Voidbringers like a good deal. Does it have to be someone important? Or can it be some dumb guy nobody likes?”

“I don’t eat souls,” Wyndle exclaimed. “I’m not trying to haggle with you! I’m stating facts. I can’t read all the information in that archive! Why can’t you just see that—”

“Oh, calm your tentacles,” Lift said, swinging her feet, bouncing her heels against the rock cliff. “I hear you. Can’t help but hear you, considering how much you whine.”

Behind, the farmers were asking whose daughter she was, and why she wasn’t running them water like kids were supposed to. Lift scrunched up her face, thinking. “Can’t wait until night and sneak in,” she muttered. “Darkness wants the poor person killed by then. ’Sides, I bet those scribes work nights. They feed off ink. Why sleep when you could be writin’ up some new law about how many fingers people can use to hold a spoon?

“They know their stuff though. They sell it all over the place. The viziers were always writing to them to get some answer to something. Mostly news around the world.” She grinned, then stood up. “You’re right. We gotta do this differently.”

“Yes indeed.”

“We gotta be smart about it. Devious. Think like a Voidbringer.”

“I didn’t say—”

“Stop complaining,” Lift said. “I’m gonna go steal some important-looking clothes.”