فصل 7

7

THEY GAVE HIM BONES.

TenSoon flowed around them, dissolving muscles, then re-forming them into organs, sinew, and skin. He built a body around the bones, using skills gained over centuries spent eating and digesting humans. Corpses only, of course—he had never killed a man. The Contract forbade such things.

After a year in his pit of a prison, he felt as if he had forgotten how to use a body. What was it like to touch the world with rigid digits, rather than a body that flowed against the confines of stone? What was it like to taste and smell with only tongue and nostrils, rather than with every bit of skin exposed to the air. What was it like to . . .

To see. He opened his eyes and gasped, drawing first breath into remade, full-sized lungs. The world was a thing of wonder and of . . . light. He had forgotten that, during the months of near madness. He pushed himself to his knees, looking down at his arms. Then, he reached up, feeling his face with a tentative hand.

His body wasn’t that of any specific person—he would have needed a model to produce such a replica. Instead, he had covered the bones with muscles and skin as best he could. He was old enough that he knew how to create a reasonable approximation of a human. The features wouldn’t be handsome; they might even be a little grotesque. That, however, was more than good enough for the moment. He felt . . . real again.

Still on hands and knees, he looked up at his captor. The cavern was lit only by a glowstone—a large, porous rock set atop a thick column base. The bluish fungus that grew on the rock made enough of a glow to see by—especially if one had specifically grown eyes that were good at seeing in dim blue light.

TenSoon knew his captor. He knew most kandra, at least up to the Sixth and Seventh Generations. This kandra’s name was VarSell. In the Homeland, VarSell didn’t wear the bones of an animal or human, but instead used a True Body—a set of false bones, human-shaped, crafted by a kandra artisan. VarSell’s True Body was quartz, and he left his skin translucent, allowing the stone to sparkle faintly in the fungal light as he studied TenSoon.

I made my body opaque, TenSoon realized. Like that of a human, with tan skin to obscure the muscles beneath. Why had that come so naturally to him? Once, he had cursed the years he spent among the humans, using their bones instead of a True Body. Perhaps he had fallen to that same old default because his captors hadn’t given him a True Body. Human bones. An insult, of sorts.

TenSoon stood. “What?” he asked at the look in VarSell’s eyes.

“I just picked a random set of bones from the storeroom,” VarSell said. “It’s ironic that I would give you a set of bones that you’d originally contributed.” TenSoon frowned. What?

And then he made the connection. The body that TenSoon had created around the bones must look convincing—as if it were the original one that these bones had belonged to. VarSell assumed that TenSoon had been able to create such a realistic approximation because he’d originally digested the human’s corpse, and therefore knew how to create the right body around the bones.

TenSoon smiled. “I’ve never worn these bones before.”

VarSell eyed him. He was of the Fifth Generation—two centuries younger than TenSoon. Indeed, even among those of the Third Generation, few kandra had as much experience with the outside world as TenSoon.

“I see,” VarSell finally said.

TenSoon turned, looking over the small chamber. Three more Fifth Generationers stood near the door, watching him. Like VarSell, few of them wore clothing—and those who did wore only open-fronted robes. Kandra tended to wear little while in the Homeland, as that allowed them to better display their True Bodies.

TenSoon saw two sparkling rods of metal embedded in the clear muscles of each Fifth’s shoulders—all three had the Blessing of Potency. The Second Generation was taking no risk of his escaping. It was, of course, another insult. TenSoon had come to his fate willingly.

“Well?” TenSoon asked, turning back to VarSell. “Are we to go?”

VarSell glanced at one of his companions. “Forming the body was expected to take you longer.”

TenSoon snorted. “The Second Generation is unpracticed. They assume that because it still takes them many hours to create a body, the rest of us require the same amount of time.” “They are your elder generation,” VarSell said. “You should show them respect.”

“The Second Generation has been sequestered in these caves for centuries,” TenSoon said, “sending the rest of us to serve Contracts while they remain lazy. I passed them in skill long ago.” VarSell hissed, and for a moment TenSoon thought the younger kandra might slap him. VarSell restrained himself, barely—to TenSoon’s amusement. After all, as a member of the Third Generation, TenSoon was senior to VarSell—much in the same way that the Seconds were supposedly senior to TenSoon.

Yet, the Thirds were a special case. They always had been. That’s why the Seconds kept them out on Contracts so much—it wouldn’t do to have their immediate underlings around all the time, upsetting their perfect little kandra utopia.

“Let’s go, then,” VarSell finally decided, nodding for two of his guards to lead the way. The other one joined VarSell, walking behind TenSoon. Like VarSell, these three had True Bodies formed of stone. Those were popular among the Fifth Generation, who had time to commission—and use—lavish True Bodies. They were the favored pups of the Seconds, and tended to spend more time than most in the Homeland.

They had given TenSoon no clothing. So, as they walked, he dissolved his genitals, and re-formed a smooth crotch, as was common among the kandra. He tried to walk with pride and confidence, but he knew this body wouldn’t look very intimidating. It was emaciated—he’d lost much mass during his imprisonment and more to the acid, and he hadn’t been able to form very large muscles.

The smooth, rock tunnel had probably once been a natural formation, but over the centuries, the younger generations had been used during their infancy to smooth out the stone with their digestive juices. TenSoon didn’t see many other kandra. VarSell kept to back corridors, obviously not wanting to make too much of a show.

I’ve been away so long, TenSoon thought. The Eleventh Generation must have been chosen by now. I still don’t know most of the Eighth, let alone the Ninth or Tenth.

He was beginning to suspect that there wouldn’t be a Twelfth Generation. Even if there were, things could not continue as they had. The Father was dead. What, then, of the First Contract? His people had spent ten centuries enslaved to humankind, serving the Contracts in an effort to keep themselves safe. Most of the kandra hated men for their situation. Up until recently, TenSoon had been one of those.

It’s ironic, TenSoon thought. But, even when we wear True Bodies, we wear them in the form of humans. Two arms, two legs, even faces formed after the fashion of mankind.

Sometimes he wondered if the unbirthed—the creatures that the humans called mistwraiths—were more honest than their brothers the kandra. The mistwraiths would form a body however they wished, connecting bones in odd arrangements, making almost artistic designs from both human and animal bones. The kandra, though—they created bodies that looked human. Even while they cursed humankind for keeping them enslaved.

Such a strange people they were. But they were his. Even if he had betrayed them.

And now I have to convince the First Generation that I was right in that betrayal. Not for me. For them. For all of us.

They passed through corridors and chambers, eventually arriving at sections of the Homeland that were more familiar to TenSoon. He soon realized that their destination must be the Trustwarren. He would argue his defense in his people’s most sacred place. He should have guessed.

A year of torturous imprisonment had earned him a trial before the First Generation. He’d had a year to think about what to say. And if he failed, he’d have an eternity to think about what he’d done wrong.

It is too easy for people to characterize Ruin as simply a force of destruction. Think rather of Ruin as intelligent decay. Not simply chaos, but a force that sought in a rational—and dangerous—way to break everything down to its most basic forms.

Ruin could plan and carefully plot, knowing if he built one thing up, he could use it to knock down two others. The nature of the world is that when we create something, we often destroy something else in the process.