by JY Yang
R: Myself and my partner. Mokoya.
Tensor N: The Protector’s daughter? Is she involved in this as well?
R: What specifically do you mean by “this”? She was involved in helping me look for my sibling. That is all.
Tensor N: Of course. Sure. Please continue.
R: Bramble was hurt—
Tensor N: Your naga. Am I right?
R: Yes, she is. I rescued her when I lived in the Quarterlands. The two of us have—
Tensor N: So, you’re an expert on these creatures, aren’t you?
R: I . . . I know Bramble. I took her in and raised her when she was a fledgling. I cannot speak for the wild ones.
Tensor N: Of course. A convenient excuse. Please, continue. Your naga was hurt. What then?
R: I convinced Mokoya to stay behind with Bramble. She is pregnant and had been feeling ill recently.
Tensor N: She let you go on your own? I find that difficult to believe. You can barely walk unassisted.
R: It is what happened.
Tensor N: You convinced her.
R: Yes. And then I left. I traveled across the bleeding plains that separate Rewar Teng from the mountain path.
Tensor N: What about Sanao Akeha? Did he not accompany you?
R: They came later. Mokoya sent them after me.
Tensor N: Describe your journey. What happened? What did you see?
R: It was mostly rocks and trees, very desolate and strange. It took me a day and a half to cross the plains. It was exhausting.
Tensor N: Did you see anyone during that time? Any animals?
R: It was all bones, some older than the others. No. There was one—I saw an animal from afar, but something killed it by the time I got closer to the institute. There were only pieces left.
Tensor N: What was it?
R: I do not know. Some kind of hybrid animal, half insect, half fawn. Your Tensorate should have better records than I do. I believe their beast killed it. You know which one I speak of, do you not? The naga crossbreed.
Tensor N: Keep talking. Tell me what happened next.
R: I approached the institute as sunfall was approaching. In hindsight, not knowing what awaited me, I should have waited until next sunrise to enter the institute. But I was tired from traveling. I did not think rationally. I could only see the glistening end to my arduous journey. I could only think of the answers to all of my questions.
Tensor N: So you just walked in?
R: It wasn’t guarded. There was a barrier, but it had decayed. The institute must have been abandoned for days.
Tensor N: It wasn’t abandoned.
R: Some people had clearly left. Others were not so lucky.
Tensor N: All the institute staff perished in the incident. No one survived. No one got away.
R: If that comforts you, then go on believing it.
Tensor N: Tell me what you saw when you broke in.
R: I saw that death. The institute was abandoned and the courtyard was full of bones and half-eaten bodies.
Tensor N: What did you do then?
R: I went into the dormitories first. I wanted to see if someone might have survived, by some miracle. But there was nothing except broken things and dead bodies.
Tensor N: I want you to describe the scene in detail.
R: I don’t remember it well. I wrote it down as I went, because I could not grasp the horror of what I was seeing. The kitchen was on the ground floor, as was the dining area. I looked there first. Everything had been knocked over, there was dirt all over the floor, broken utensils, raw vegetables that were rotting. There was blood too, old and dried. I didn’t find anything useful. Then—then I went upstairs.
Tensor N: And what did you find?
R: The bodies.
Tensor N: Go on.
R: I—There were, I think, six—were there six? I think there were six. Their throats had been bitten. A few of them had their bellies slit. It had been days. The smell—
Tensor N: Where were they?
R: All over. The second floor was all bedrooms. I think they barricaded the stairs with furniture. Something had destroyed it. There was nothing left but shards and splinters. Two Tensors died at the barricade. One got as far as the rooms before they were killed.
Tensor N: How did you know they were Tensors? There were non-Tensorate staff in the institute as well.
R: I . . . assumed, from the way they were dressed. It is possible they were not Tensors. The floor bore scars of slackcraft. Something had burned. But it may not have been the humans.
Tensor N: What do you mean?
R: They were too scared. They died fleeing—why would they flee, if they could fight? I think whatever attacked them manipulated the Slack. The institute was breeding adept animals, weren’t they?
Tensor N: I’m the one asking the questions.
R: I read some of the logbooks that I saw.
Tensor N: In the dormitories?
R: No, a different building. I was in the laboratories—
Tensor N: Let’s stay in the dormitories. What did you do on the second floor?
R: I . . . walked around. I was trying to understand what happened.
Tensor N: What did you take?
R: Nothing. I took nothing. I found nothing of use. Someone must have gone through their closets before I did; I found only clothes and toiletries. No journals or letters. No, wait, I found some light captures. But I didn’t take them.
Tensor N: You think someone took their letters but left the bodies lying there? To rot?
R: I do not know what other explanation there could be. All their other belongings were intact and untouched. Whatever happened, happened fast. They had no time to pack, or hide or put away things. Someone else must have done it.
Tensor N: But it wasn’t you.
R: It was not.
Tensor N: It’ll go much harder on you if you lie to us, little lady.
R: I am not lying. Nor am I a lady, but I don’t expect you to understand.
Tensor N: You’re right. I don’t understand why you’re making things harder on yourself.
R: Why interrogate me, if you will not believe what I say? I am telling you the truth. Do not dismiss me just because it is not what you want to hear.
Tensor N: You’re wasting my time. Move on. What happened next?
R: After the dormitories, I went to the laboratory building. I could hear something moving around the buildings, but I didn’t see anything. It made me more cautious. Something had broken the door in; it was a big metal door, the height of two floors. I thought the creature might be sleeping in there, but I went inside anyway. Thankfully, the laboratory was unoccupied. Just some tanks and empty cages. Maybe a few dead animals. Some Tensors had definitely died there, but the creature must have dragged the bodies outside. I found books with descriptions of the experiments. That’s how I knew they were trying to breed adepts. They were testing the animals for slackcraft abilities. Your Tensorate said the institute was for farm animals—that was a lie. They were trying to make weapons. For war.
Tensor N: War? You’re reaching. Farms need to be guarded too.
R: Who needs a naga hybrid to guard rice paddies? These animals were bred for war, and you know it. You can see what they did when they were set free. You saw the massacre. Wild creatures do not kill with such precision, nor with such efficiency.
Tensor N: And you could tell that just from reading the journals? How long were you in there?
R: Not long.
Tensor N: And again, you took nothing with you?
R: You are correct. You must understand, Tensor, that the beast was free in the compound at that time. I had not seen it yet, but I knew I was not alone. I did not dare linger in any one place.
Tensor N: So, where did you go next?
R: The mill where they’d kept the beast.
Tensor N: The mill?
R: The tall, round building. It was behind the laboratories.
Tensor N: Tell me what y
ou saw in there.
R: It wasn’t pleasant.
Tensor N: Tell me what you saw.
R: The building is where they kept the beasts, the naga hybrids. Half-naga, half-raptor. There were two of them. One had escaped. The other one . . . It was dead. Several days dead. Have you smelled that particular stench before, Tensor? A dead cat, a dead dog, something?
Tensor N: I’ve seen my share of bodies.
R: I ask that you imagine this was ten times worse. A hundred. The air was unbreathable.
Tensor N: What did you do?
R: I ran back outside.
Tensor N: Into the courtyard with all the dead bodies?
R: The air there was open.
Tensor N: You didn’t enter the main institute building?
R: I did, after visiting the animal pens. I think this will be of little interest to you; there was nothing there. Only bones. What you really want to hear about are the caverns. Am I wrong?
Tensor N: All right. Tell me what you saw in the caverns.
R: Be prepared. It’s a long story.
Part Two
THE FUGITIVE
Chapter Seventeen
[1162.07.22]
Good evening. The sun falls upon an empire stewing in its rot and corruption, upon a Protectorate where well-fed children play in manicured gardens while orphans starve in the gutter, upon mountains full of ugly secrets and cities determined to keep them buried. It sets upon the disgraced former Tensor Chuwan Sariman, an outlaw in word and deed and name. And if this is to be an outlaw’s diary, then I should treat it as such.
This is my truth, my record of everything that’s about to happen. The heavens know that the Protectorate will tell their version of my story, and it will be nothing but lies coated in horseshit. I can see it already: behold this brat, who benefited from the generosity of Kuanjin society but reverted to the barbarism of her Kebang roots anyway.
Well, fuck you all. You can’t control me anymore.
Let’s start where we last ended. I’d stolen the transcripts from the late Tensor Ngiau’s office. When I decided to keep them, I knew that I would never return to the Ministry of Justice. There was no way my crimes wouldn’t come to light, no way I wouldn’t get caught if I went back. I had thrown my lot in with the rebels.
I panicked. I panicked a lot. I thought about the life I’d scraped together. The small house I’d managed to buy in the city, where Kayan could always come for shelter. The job that let me feel like I was making a difference. I almost changed my mind.
And then I remembered that I made a difference by helping people. Doing the right thing. What I had on my hands was so much bigger than me, and worrying about my future was not just foolish but also selfish. I thought of Cai Yuan-ning and her anguish.
I got back to work.
Cut off from the resources I needed now that the investigation was over, I had one lead left: Cai Yuanfang’s sister. But it was more than enough for me. I waited for the dark of the first night-cycle, when the dew chills upon the nape of your neck, and stole into the Registry of Births and Deaths. Except that I got lost in the sprawling complex and nearly got caught twice, because I am not nearly as good as I like to tell myself. It was a ridiculous sort of good luck that allowed me to reach my objective in one piece, as though the Slack had obligingly bent itself around reality to serve me. (Which is a stupid thing to think . . . or is it?)
In any case, I made it. In a dusty, lightless hall filled with shelves of scrolls, using the barest of slackcraft to work a sunball and praying no one would detect anything, I found the records for Cai Yuanfang’s family. One sister, Cai Yuan-ning. The registry told me where she lived.
I knocked on her door in the second night-cycle. When nobody responded, I tried to push her window in, only to be confronted by the muzzle of a black-market gun. She recognized me. I saw fear but also terrible courage. “What do you want, Tensor?”
“I’m not here as a Tensor,” I said. “Not anymore.” This didn’t convince her, so I said, “Would a Tensor try to break into your house this way?”
She conceded. “No, they would have just torn the door down.” And so we declared a fragile truce laced with suspicions. It was a start.
Yuan-ning’s brother Yuanfang had been her only family; both their parents were dead. It’s a story I know too well: a poor family (generations of tanners, although Yuan-ning works as a seamstress now), the son burning the midnight oil until he was good enough to pass the Tensorate Academy’s admissions exam. A first for the family. Their bright hope. “I gave up everything for him,” she said. She abandoned her own schooling to work so the family could afford expensive private tutors for her brother. “He promised to look after me when I’m old.” And now she has nothing: no parents, no brother, no hope.
I showed her the transcript of Rider’s interrogation. “This is what they tried to hide from me,” I said. “Hideous experiments and secrets protected in the rock under the institute.”
She told me, “You don’t even know.”
From the darkness of her private room she excavated a stack of letters. Yuanfang’s letters. She treated them like they were more precious than gold—and I understand. They’re all she has left of her brother. I wanted to take the important bits as evidence, and she shot that down like an errant sun. I could read them, that was all. I can only summarize what I read, since I wasn’t allowed to keep any of it or even copy down his words, because . . . Fine. I won’t speak ill of her.
Yuanfang worried about things all the time. Other people, small animals, the state of the world, whether his sister was eating enough.
His letters mentioned names that weren’t among the list of the dead. This means that the institute had secret staff nobody knew about. (fucking fantastic)
Yuanfang was shy and had difficulty getting along with people. If someone as reclusive as him knew this many unlisted staff, how many more worked in the secret caverns?
There were definitely caverns under the official institute, run by a separate, unknown branch of Tensors accountable to nobody else.
Yuanfang had no idea what went on there. None of the Tensors working aboveground were allowed into the caverns. There was a single point of access in the main building, and it was always heavily guarded.
He had strange, recurring dreams that troubled him more than dreams should. (So, I’m not crazy)
Once, in the dark half of a night-cycle, he woke to see a child dressed in white standing in the middle of the courtyard. By the time he put clothes on and ran downstairs, the child was gone.
The next day his supervisor tried to convince him that the child was one of his troubling dreams. Sure, Tensor Xiang. That sounds likely.
That night, Yuanfang gathered what courage he possessed and slipped into the caverns. He found “strange and unspeakable” things there. And refused to go into any further detail. (What was down there? Human bones? Disgusting orgies? I need to know)
Crucially, he found a set of large fish ponds that he had seen in one of his recurring dreams. All identical, down to the fish stocked in those murky waters. He nearly lost his mind (understandable).
This was his last letter to Yuan-ning. As though the fortunes would let slip the truth so easily.
The one thing about these patchwork pictures that truly struck me, like a fist to the gut, was his description of that particular dream. That fucking dream with the fish in the pond and the teacher watching. Because it was my dream. And the fishponds were real. All this time, I’ve been dreaming of something that exists in the real world—something from those notorious caverns that hangs so frustratingly beyond my grasp! I think I impressed Yuan-ning with the breadth and depth of my filthy vocabulary when I read those parts.
But I don’t care. She can judge me. I’m not crazy. Heavens above, I’m not crazy. I wasn’t overreacting when I found these strange dreams unsettling. They are connected to this sorry affair, even though I don’t understand how.
Something here stinks stron
ger than a sardine box. Is someone planting these dreams in my head, same as they did in poor dead Cai Yuanfang’s? And who could it be?
The next step was clear as blood in a water dish. There’s one person I know who has been in those caverns (almost certainly) and is still alive (most likely). Rider, the outlaw. I told Yuan-ning that I was leaving to find the leaders of the Machinist rebellion in the Grand Monastery. Would she join me?
To my surprise, Yuan-ning said yes. And not just that. She said, “You’re wanted by the Tensorate now, aren’t you? So, you can’t just walk through Chengbee to get to the Grand Monastery. You’ll get arrested. And if I’m with you, I’ll get arrested too. So, we’ll have to think of something else.” I must say I’m deeply impressed by her and her willingness to trudge through the waist-deep ocean of sewage that is the inner workings of the Protectorate. She may have nothing left to lose but her life, but that still counts for something. Her guts are lined with steel, and I’m glad we got to meet.
Yuan-ning has a friend, Old Choo, who drives a cart and collects night soil from various Protectorate buildings. He’s fetching us at first sunrise tomorrow and taking us to the Grand Monastery. Presumably with his nightly cargo still loaded in his cart. That’s marvelous—we shall arrive before the rebel outlaws, stinking of old shit.
How fitting.
Chapter Eighteen
[1162.07.23]
Here I am, tucked in the Grand Monastery, a reprobate and an outlaw at last. It was easier getting in than I expected—I thought we were going to be interrogated. Tied up. Thrown into cells until they could make sure we weren’t actually spies. But Yuan-ning and I were welcomed like old friends. Offered food and water and lodging for no reason other than that we asked. Either I have forgotten what true generosity feels like, or they have an agenda.
(Now that I’ve written it out, that feels uncharitable. I remember the village I grew up in, where houses were not barricaded behind white walls and doors were always open, strangers welcomed into our midst with no questions asked. Hungry? Have some food. Tired? You can stay for the night. Long way to go? Take these supplies with you. I miss that. I miss the warmth of my mother’s hearth and the sound of easy laughter from the communal weaving halls.)