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Sumeru sand had a life of its own.
Valeriy reached this conclusion on the third day.
On the first day, he had considered Sumeru merely hot. On the second, inconvenient. By the third, sand had entered his boots, his pack, the action of one rifle, two supposedly sealed equipment cases, and a boiled egg.
Sergeant Mikhailov solemnly brought him the egg shortly after dawn, as it presenting evidence before a jury.
“There is sand inside it.”
It had been peeled. A fine crescent of reddish grit was embedded between the white and the yolk.
Valeriy looked at it. “That is impossible.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You boiled it in the shell?”
“Yes, sir.”
They both turned to the desert. The desert offered no explanation.
“Dispose of it.”
Mikhailov ate it. Valeriy decided not to ask why.
Their camp occupied the sheltered side of an canyon two days’ travel from Aaru Village. Beyond it stood a partially buried ruin from the time of King Deshret.
The mission itself was legitimate in the most political sense of the word. In the aftermath of Il Dottore's activities in Sumeru, relations between the Akademiya and the Fatui rested upon suspicion, necessity and large quantities of documentation. Several damaged components of King Deshret’s machinery had been recovered from the excavation. The Akademiya wanted them catalogued, the Fatui wanted to study them, and neither trusted the other sufficiently to work alone.
Snezhnaya had therefore been granted supervised access with guidelines so specific that the final agreement included dimensions for packing crates. The Special Assignments Battalion provided security and retrieval personnel.
The journey would take several weeks. Valeriy had not objected.
Now, shortly after midday, he stood beneath a section of ancient stone ceiling. A young Akademiya researcher named Shalmar extended one hand towards a floating mechanical component.
“Don't.”
The scholar’s fingers stopped. “I was only checking the surface temperature.”
“Without gloves.”
“It isn't active.”
Valeriy looked at the section of collapsed masonry ten metres behind them. The scholar followed his gaze.
Yesterday, another allegedly inactive mechanism had opened an entire wall. The wall had not been designed to open. Two tonnes of stone had fallen into the space Lieutenant Saranin had occupied moments prior.
The scholar cleared his throat. “That was an architectural response.”
“It nearly killed a man.”
He withdrew his hand.
Valeriy returned to the inventory.
The work suited him.
There was a defined perimeter. A clear objective. Limited personnel. The political officers dealt with negotiations while the scholars dealt with inscriptions. Valeriy ensured that nobody died from the whims of an ancient king.
He had spent most of his adult life travelling in precisely this manner. Foreign cities where every street was unfamiliar and every official had a different interpretation of the same agreement. He had slept in tents, barracks, abandoned houses, ships, and warehouses. Once he had slept beneath an overturned supply wagon during a storm, because the alternative had been drowning.
There was nothing unusual about being away from Snezhnaya.
* * * *
The first machinery they discovered attempted to kill them.
The chamber lay in the lowest accessible level of the complex, beyond a corridor that had taken the scholars four days to clear. Sand had forced itself through cracks in the stone and collected in drifts against the walls.
Valeriy disliked the room immediately. It was too intact.
Three angular mechanisms stood around the platform, folded into configurations that made them difficult to distinguish from the architecture. Their central cores were dark.
Shalmar crouched at the edge of the platform. “No detectable energy output.”
Valeriy turned in his direction.
Shalmar cleared his throat. “At present.”
The scholars began their measurements.
Valeriy stationed Mikhailov and Saranin at the entrance, another pair beside the eastern wall, and kept the remaining men back from the central platform. The retrieval team prepared the lifting frame. Every measurement was checked twice.
The first construct moved when Saranin sneezed. Valeriy never established whether the two events were connected.
One moment the chamber contained three inert pieces of ancient machinery. The next, metal components lifted and rotated around a suddenly luminous core. Sand cascaded from joints.
“Back.”
The third construct unfolded. The first discharge struck the wall where Saranin had been standing. Stone exploded outward.
Valeriy drew his weapon.
The constructs moved with an impressive combination of speed and geometric precision. One drove towards the eastern team while another released a burst of energy across the platform.
His men responded well. Mikhailov pulled one of the scholars behind cover. Saranin fired into the exposed centre of the nearest machine. Someone shouted from the corridor.
Valeriy crossed the chamber and aimed directly at the construct’s core.
The machine convulsed. Its outer pieces scattered, and then the core vanished.
Smaller components skittered across the floor, trailing pale light. One struck at Mikhailov's legs. He jumped clear and fired.
Valeriy’s Electro Vision answered almost before he consciously reached for it. Violet light snapped along his weapon. The invisible core flickered back into existence.
There.
Electro tore through it.
Valeriy turned, blocked one strike, and heard Saranin call a warning that arrived only after it was useful. He drove the construct away from the scholars, and shouted for the eastern flank to close the gap.
They did. Competently.
Just not quickly enough.
Valeriy discharged another arc of Electro through the exposed components and watched the machine seize.
Odette would have already been there.
She would have understood the pattern after the first machine. She would have taken the eastern side without being told, waited for him to expose the core, and attacked at exactly the point where its attention shifted towards him.
He would not have needed to say anything.
Instead:
“Left.”
Saranin moved left.
“Not you. Mikhailov.”
Mikhailov corrected.
The construct vanished again. Valeriy swore under his breath. The third machine came at him.
He met it with Electro.
By the time the chamber became quiet again, two walls had been damaged and one lifting frame had been destroyed. Saranin had acquired a shallow burn across his sleeve, and Dr. Shalmar was sitting behind a stone plinth holding a measuring instrument protectively against his chest.
The three constructs lay inert.
Valeriy waited. Nothing moved. He prodded the constructs. Still nothing.
Only then did he lower his weapon.
Shalmar stood and stared at the wreckage with unmistakable academic fascination. “Extraordinary.”
* * * *
A courier reached them on day six.
Most of the dispatches were official: revised transport schedules, two notices concerning diplomatic protocol, a request for additional measurements from an Armory Palace engineering office, and three separate copies of an amended customs document.
Beneath them lay a smaller envelope.
Valeriy’s name and rank were written neatly above the expedition’s field address. There was no sender. He opened it before the official dispatches.
Valeriy,
I found one of your gloves beneath the sofa.
Valeriy folded the sheet so quickly that Mikhailov looked up.
“Something wrong, Sir?”
Valeriy opened his mouth to reply, then thought better of it.
“The researchers mentioned Eremite tracks west of the encampment. Take two men to investigate.”
He placed the letter back into its envelope before slipping it inside his coat.
Mikhailov noticed.
“Yes, Sir.”
The letter remained in Valeriy's pocket for another six hours.
A section of the excavation needed securing. The scholars disagreed over whether a cracked energy conduit could be moved without damaging its internal matrix, and both factions attempted to explain their position to Valeriy simultaneously.
By the time he returned to his tent, darkness had settled over the camp.
He lit the lamp.
Valeriy,
I found one of your gloves beneath the sofa.
I assume you do not need it urgently. I have put it in the hallway cupboard for now.
The new programme is proceeding well. Vodyanitsa came to rehearsal on Tuesday and stayed for most of the second act. She says the orchestra is taking the adagio too quickly and that the conductor has mistaken urgency for feeling. The conductor disagrees. They have been disagreeing about it for days.
The theatre has also acquired a new pianist from Fontaine who believes every problem can be corrected by describing it in French. Several of the younger dancers are impressed by this. Yesterday he spent ten minutes explaining a movement I have performed since I was seventeen.
I looked up the complex you mentioned before you left. The library has very little on the lower chambers, and most of the information they have appears to have been written by people who have never been there. If the mechanisms are as intact as the Akademiya believes, I would like to know whether modern Sumeru devices use any of the same principles. The reports are unclear on this point.
The glove will remain here until you return.
O.
Valeriy turned the page. Nothing.
He checked the envelope again. No return address.
He considered his options. A reply would require an envelope addressed to Lady Odette Spessiva, handed to the battalion courier.
Mikhailov handled all the post.
Valeriy would just have to answer her questions when he returned.
He folded the letter and placed it beneath the field notebook inside his pack.
After a moment, he took it out again.
The inner pocket of his coat was more secure.
He put it there instead.
* * * *
The expedition settled into routine.
They rose before sunrise because the desert became intolerable by midday. Work slowed during the worst of the afternoon heat and resumed towards evening. Valeriy had finished the perimeter check and sat beside the supply table with a cup of tea.
Across the camp, Lieutenant Saranin was explaining how a merchant in Caravan Ribat had attempted to sell him a knife. At some point, he reached the question of whether the merchant’s second cousin had genuinely served with the Corps of Thirty.
He clearly had an inability to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant detail.
Valeriy found his attention moving automatically to the empty space beside him, as if he expected to find something there.
She would not have interrupted. Interruption would have implied engagement. She would have shared a look with him, the minute crease interrupting her brows.
Valeriy returned his attention to Saranin. The story had reached the merchant's aunt.
The next evening, Valeriy ate half a bowl of soup while reviewing a transport manifest. The broth was red, heavily spiced and contained something fibrous which Mikhailov claimed was meat.
Odette would probably have eaten it without complaint. She had once eaten half a military ration beside a frozen road without comment, then refused the sweet biscuit because it was “texturally offensive.” Her standards regarding food remained difficult to predict.
Valeriy's were simpler.
He preferred the small shop by the Snezhnograd railway with windows that fogged completely in winter. She had been there often enough that the owner no longer raised an eyebrow when she entered behind him.
He finished the soup.
A few nights later, he found an entire stretch of the horizon that had turned blue with starlight.
The moon had not yet risen. With no buildings and no artificial light for kilometres, thousands more stars were visible than in Snezhnograd.
He looked up longer than the perimeter check required.
She sat in the warm water, gazing at the sky with her damp silver hair loose over her shoulders.
“You would like this.”
Valeriy continued walking.
* * * *
The expedition required replacement survey instruments. Valeriy went with the quartermaster to the nearest merchant capable of supplying them, at a settlement near Aaru Village. The merchant occupied a narrow sandstone building between a textile seller and a bookshop.
Valeriy noticed the bookshop because the quartermaster took forty minutes to argue about brass couplings. He ducked inside.
Sumeru produced books the way Snezhnaya produced snow. The sheer amount of academic texts reflected scholars' preference for publication over speaking to one another.
Valeriy moved past a shelf of military history.
Then stopped.
MECHANISMS OF KING DESHRET: POWER, MOTION AND AUTOMATION IN THE GREAT RED SAND.
He pulled the volume free. It was dry, technical and unnecessarily thick.
He opened the contents page. Four chapters concerned mechanisms recovered from ancient ruins. Another examined proposed methods of power generation. There were diagrams.
He could already hear her objecting to the author's assumptions.
* * * *
The next courier brought nothing unexpected.
Valeriy went through the dispatches, checked that nothing had been caught against the bottom of the pouch, and handed it back to Mikhailov.
It rained on the fourteenth day, for four minutes.
The temperature fell enough afterward for the evening shift to become almost pleasant. A group of local workers had brought instruments with them, and after dinner someone began playing. The music was unfamiliar, built around rhythms Valeriy could not predict. One of the scholars attempted to dance with no evidence of coordination.
Valeriy watched for a while.
Six months earlier, he would not have had an opinion about dancing beyond whether it obstructed a doorway.
He now knew when a turn began from the wrong foot, or what happened to balance when the shoulders moved before the hips. He knew that dancers lied about effort with extraordinary discipline.
At home, Saranin had once obtained spare tickets to the Korolevskiy Troupe and asked whether anyone wanted one. Valeriy had taken the ticket.
The musician changed rhythm.
Valeriy returned to his reports.
The second letter arrived two weeks after the first.
Valeriy recognised the handwriting this time.
He opened the official correspondence first. He lasted through the revised transport schedule and half of a customs notice before setting both aside.
Valeriy,
I still have your glove.
The theatre roof leaked during rehearsal yesterday. Somebody put a bucket behind the third wing and forgot about it. I found it during an entrance in the second act. The bucket survived, but the dancing had to include more sweeping kicks.
One of my father’s old books had a reference to the desert ruins of Sumeru. The security required to enter the compounds were so complex that several explorers died attempting to force entry. I assume the Akademiya has provided you with some form of clearance.
I joined a mission with Tartaglia a few days ago. He was so pleased to be doing something other than politics and paperwork that the rest of the team proved largely superfluous. You should have seen him. Most of us only saw a blur.
There is a new dumpling shop near the railway. The fragrance keeps wafting into the back alleys, which I suspect may be intentional.
O.
Valeriy read it twice.
Then a third time several hours later, because he had forgotten whether she had said the second or third wing.
It had been the third.
The information was of no conceivable use.
* * * *
Several days later, Valeriy found another book.
He almost walked past it. It was a large illustrated study of traditional dance across Sumeru, arranged by region and accompanied by paintings of performers in local costume. Valeriy opened it somewhere in the middle.
The illustration showed a desert dancer midway through a turn. The accompanying text discussed the position of her hands and its relationship to the drum rhythm.
Valeriy turned the page.
Odette would probably object to the author's habit of describing every movement as graceful without explaining what the dancer was actually doing.
“Major?”
Saranin stood at the end of the aisle.
His eyes dropped to the open book in Valeriy's hands. The illustration showed a scantily clad desert woman, one thigh visible through a slit in her dress.
Saranin raised his brows, glancing rapidly between Valeriy and the book.
Valeriy closed it. “Do you require something?”
“Sergeant Mikhailov reports that the quartermaster has finished, sir.”
“Understood.”
“Sir.”
Saranin left rather quickly.
Sergeant Mikhailov was an excellent soldier. He was observant and reliable under pressure, but possessed a level of social curiosity that Valeriy regarded as a serious character defect.
They were inspecting the western perimeter when Mikhailov said, “Courier tomorrow, sir.”
“Should be.”
“Unless the road's bad.”
Valeriy turned towards him. Mikhailov inspected the horizon. There was nothing there.
“Is there a point to this conversation, Sergeant?”
“No, sir.”
They continued walking. After twenty metres, Mikhailov added, “You've been checking the post personally, sir.”
The desert wind whistled between them.
“Are you suggesting this is unusual?”
“No, sir.”
Mikhailov had served under him long enough to know when silence was safer.
The next day, the courier did not arrive. The road had, in fact, been bad.
Valeriy found this more irritating than the circumstances warranted.
* * * *
The work at the excavation concluded on the twenty-eighth day.
The components themselves were less impressive than the diplomatic correspondence surrounding them. A total of three interlocking pieces of an ancient control system were packed. Each was damaged beyond independent function but still sufficiently intact to interest engineers at Glupov.
By sunset, the crates were sealed. Mikhailov considered this worthy of celebration.
The local caravan master produced alcohol. The soldiers gathered around the largest fire after dinner. Even the scholars joined them, relieved enough by the completion of the work to temporarily stop arguing about classification.
Mikhailov appeared beside him with two cups.
“No.”
“The work is complete, sir. The crates are intact, nobody was killed, and we leave tomorrow.”
“That is the expected outcome.”
“No scholar has been crushed by an architectural response.”
Valeriy looked at him. Mikhailov's face remained straight. The men nearby were listening.
The liquid inside the bottle was amber and smelled faintly of dates.
“One.”
The men cheered.
Valeriy remained by the fire for another thirty minutes. He listened to Saranin tell an inaccurate version of the Primal Construct incident, corrected him twice, and eventually stood.
He had stayed long enough to satisfy whatever strange social obligation Mikhailov believed he had been neglecting.
“I am going to sleep.”
Mikhailov appeared far too pleased.
Valeriy stopped.
The sergeant's expression altered, albeit too late.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Mikhailov.”
“Sir.”
“What did you do?”
The men around the fire became silent. Mikhailov considered his answer.
“The men made an arrangement, sir.”
“No.”
“You do not know what it is.”
“I know enough.”
Mikhailov then displayed the courage of someone supported by twelve other people - who would probably deny involvement if questioned individually.
“You've been in poor spirits, sir. The men thought it might improve your morale.”
“My morale.”
Valeriy looked around the fire. Every man there had suddenly become deeply interested in their cups. Saranin examined the sky.
“Sir, in our defence…”
“You have none.”
Valeriy walked towards his tent.
* * * *
The woman sitting on his bed was perhaps thirty.
She had dark hair braided over one shoulder and wore an embroidered fabric gathered lightly at the waist. A small bag rested beside her sandals.
“You're Major Valeriy.”
“Yes.”
Valeriy stood just within the entry.
“I apologise.”
Her eyebrows rose. “For what?”
“There has been a misunderstanding. My soldiers had no authority to arrange this.”
She glanced towards the tent flap.
“The soldiers paid in advance.”
“I am sure they did.”
“They were generous.”
“I am sure they were.”
The woman studied him for a moment, apparently revising whatever assessment she had been given before coming here.
“They said you were difficult.” She mused. “You don't like women?”
“No.”
Her eyebrows rose.
Valeriy realised the answer had been vague.
“That is not what I meant.”
She laughed.
It was an easy sound. Odette's laughter was quieter.
The woman shifted slightly on the bed. Her face was pleasant, and her eyes intelligent. Her body was exactly the sort of body Mikhailov presumably thought would solve whatever problem his commanding officer had developed.
The woman had begun watching him with greater interest.
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Engaged?”
“No.”
“Someone at home?”
Valeriy paused.
Silver hair against a dark pillow.
Her hand around a warm bowl of soup.
A lamp burning in the hall of an old house.
“There is someone.”
The woman smiled. He preferred this to further questions.
“You came from the village?”
“Yesterday. Your soldiers arranged transport.”
The nearest inhabited settlement was hours away even. The desert between them was difficult terrain, and night had already fallen. His soldiers had brought her here. That made her safety his responsibility whether he liked the circumstances or not.
“You should remain here tonight.” Valeriy reached for his bedroll.
“And you?”
“I will sleep elsewhere.”
“This is your tent.”
“Yes.”
“They paid me to spend the night with you.”
“I am aware.”
“And you're leaving.”
“Yes.”
The woman looked around at the bed, the lamp, the small field table and the comparative luxury of having an entire officer’s tent to herself.
“Well.”
Valeriy rolled the blanket tightly.
“Breakfast is shortly after sunrise. If you require transport back, speak to the quartermaster. He will arrange it.”
“You really are difficult.”
“So I have been told.”
This time she laughed again.
* * * *
The command tent contained two tables, six crates, a folding chair and mountains of paperwork. Valeriy moved the chair, put the bedroll on the ground, and lay down.
He was not offended by what his men had done. He would deal with the disciplinary aspect tomorrow.
The more interesting problem was that their conclusion had not been entirely unreasonable.
He had been irritable.
He had checked the courier pouch more often than necessary.
He had spent several evenings walking beyond camp instead of joining the men.
Mikhailov had presumably assembled these observations, added five weeks without female company, and reached the obvious explanation.
Valeriy thought of Saranin in the bookshop.
The illustrated dancers had probably not helped.
Valeriy shifted on the bedroll.
The woman in his tent was attractive. Available. Willing.
There was no agreement with Odette that would have made accepting her a betrayal. They had never discussed exclusivity. They had barely discussed the fact that they were sleeping together.
And yet the prospect had held no appeal.
What he wanted, Valeriy realised with some irritation, was far less convenient.
He wanted soup that did not contain unidentified fibres.
He wanted to show Odette the books he found and hear precisely what was wrong with them.
He wanted to tell her about the egg. She would not believe him. He had not believed it and he had been looking directly at it.
He wanted an evening in which neither of them spoke for an hour.
Valeriy stared at the canvas.
Sex would have been simpler.
He closed his eyes.
* * * *
Mikhailov found him outside the command tent shortly after sunrise. Valeriy was drinking tea.
The sergeant’s gaze moved to the rolled bedroll beside Valeriy's boot. Then towards the Major's tent.
“Good morning, Sergeant.”
“Sir.” Mikhailov's face performed several calculations. “Sleep well, sir?”
“No.” Valeriy put down the cup. “Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir?”
“You will conduct a complete inventory of the eastern equipment stores before departure.”
Mikhailov's expression fell. “The entire store, sir?”
“Every weapon stripped and cleaned.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Every strap and buckle inspected.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Twice.”
Mikhailov looked briefly towards the heavens. The heavens did not intervene.
“Yes, sir.”
The convoy moved north.
The dunes flattened. Dry scrub became grass, then grass became trees.
By the time they reached the greener trade roads, several soldiers had stopped complaining about sand and begun complaining about insects.
Valeriy regarded this as ingratitude.
At the transfer station, the recovered components passed beneath diplomatic seal into the custody of the onward transport team. Valeriy signed the final inventory.
“Prepare the men.”
“Yes, sir.”
There was no letter waiting at the transfer station.
Valeriy checked.
* * * *
By the time the lights of Snezhnograd appeared, it was after ten at night.
The convoy entered the Armory Palace compound. Unloading took forty-three minutes. Valeriy supervised all of it.
Three crates went to secure storage. Two required signatures. One seal had been damaged and had to be documented before anyone would accept custody. The men returned weapons and collected personal equipment.
Finally, there was nothing left that required Valeriy to remain.
Mikhailov shouldered his pack. “Morning briefing, sir?”
“Ten.”
Mikhailov looked grateful. “Thank you, sir.”
The battalion dispersed.
Valeriy adjusted the strap of his travel bag, then walked out through the south gate.
The shops were closed. A tram rattled past carrying three passengers.
The books in his travel case struck softly against one another as he walked.
He had spent six weeks acquiring things to tell her.
The egg. The constructs. Shalmar. The stars. The books. The rain that had lasted four minutes. Saranin's knife story, which had eventually turned out not to involve the knife at all.
The old Spessiva house was completely dark when he reached it. The hall lamp was off.
He had never come here like this. There had always been a reason for his presence.
Tonight there was none.
Valeriy opened the gate. His knock sounded louder than expected.
He considered the hour. He knocked again, more quietly.
A light appeared upstairs. Shortly after, another came on in the hall.
Valeriy heard movement. The lock turned.
The door opened only a little at first, held by the chain. A narrow strip of warm light fell across the snow. An eye peeked through the gap.
For perhaps a second she did not recognise him. Then her eyes widened.
The door closed again. He heard the chain slide free.
Odette stood at the door.
There was a faint crease along her left cheek. Her eyes were slightly narrowed against the light, lashes still clumped darkly at the corners with sleep. Silver hair fell over both shoulders in a disorderly mass, flattened on one side where she had slept on it and tangled slightly at the ends. A shorter strand had caught against her lower lip.
A dark woollen robe lay unevenly over her nightdress, one side higher than the other, the belt sitting loose at her waist and leaving a narrow line of skin visible from the hollow of her throat to the upper curve of one breast. The nightdress beneath was thin, one narrow strap resting on her collarbone.
Below her robe he could see her bare shins and ankles, with both feet planted on the old carpet. Her toes had curled away from the draught coming through the open door.
Six weeks had been longer than he thought.
Odette finally spoke.
“You're back.”
Snow moved through the light from the doorway.
Odette stepped aside.
Valeriy entered.
The door closed behind them.