13 - Studies of Anathema

The light in Nadian’s study made the creamy stone glow luminous, the walls still radiating gentle heat even this late at night. Outside, in the desert night, there was the swirl of light snow blowing down in the canyon below and it was most pleasant to have one of the ancient Loggia where one had the view down the river and the pleasant atmosphere provided by curtains of stone, cool at the height of the day and warm in the depths of night.

Nadian delicately lifted another shred of book away from the decaying body the snatchers had delivered. He turned and laid the gossamer, crumbling piece out on the quartz table before turning back to gaze down at the body. Aside from being Dark on the old texts, it was a good thing the Ancients had themselves wrapped in their books or their mandery would be almost impossible to find at all. The body, though desiccated, had decayed before it dried and was barely recognizable as having once been human. There was nothing but a faint moldy, dusty odor. This time he wouldn’t need the clove orange to hold under his nose, though it lay to hand on his desk next the beeswax lamp.

It was also helpful, in finding the texts themselves, which the Manders and Cliners, every one of them, had all had themselves buried in caves along the north rim rather than in the cemeteries along the south road and the edge of the sand.  Ordinary Hive Lords had no such winding sheets, so were usually just dumped in the canyon as useless, since no one would pay for a body like that.

He looked at the bared teeth, the rime of flesh reduced to a leather flap fallen into the center of the face. The bottom jaw had disappeared long ago. Nadian tightened the bands around his forearms, keeping the cloth away from the corpse. He leaned over and with his tiniest blade, teased away at the last discernible rag of parchment pasted over the chest wall. It fell into three pieces as his knife slid between it and the body, tipping flat onto the palm of his other hand. The bottom edges were ragged where the body had rotted the text away completely, lying on it. He reverently placed it on the table to work with later, carefully laying priceless pieces of desert glass over the fragments of parchment.

No one knew what had destroyed the ancient school a generation ago. It and the last Deei in Lainz had vanished in a tremendous accident that had taken the highest Loggia, cracked it off its foundation and crumbled it and the school and every last possible teacher into the canyon below. The vast libraries had been the last winding sheets of those Deei and no one – not even the best-paid snatchers -- dared disturb that grave near the base of the south wall. Pity, that.

 

It was claimed that the pile of rock was haunted and not only could one hear the screams of the Deei but one could still smell the stink of sulfur. It was seen as a judgment of the Light and now only amulet hawkers in the Basin claimed any kind of esoteric powers in Lainz. At least officially.

For himself Nadian was more annoyed, by them destroying themselves, than traumatized. He took it personally that they had all died before he’d been born, much less could be taught by someone other than his own, half-trained father.

The body crumbled together as he gathered the edges of the sheet, folding up the remains into an anonymous bundle as brittle as dead leaves. From his worktables it was only a step or two down to the balcony stretching out over the abyss. As he slid the door open the cold wind slammed inside as though it had been lying in wait for the opportunity, thrusting icy fingers into his clothing and hair, plucking at the sheet.

Nadian liked the wind. It was honest in its ability to kill with cold, its ability to pick you up and hurl you against the stone so far below the way a man would smash a clay pot. A wet clay pot but a pot nonetheless. The wind took his mind off his nervousness. Ripping apart these old bodies didn’t bother him, even though any decent citizen of Lainz would be crying for his Exposure in a bottomless cage if they found out he was desecrating Ancestors. He didn’t much care. After all, none of their vengeful ghosts had ever shown up to haunt him. Perhaps because they weren’t HIS direct ancestors. Or perhaps they left him alone because he was joining various groups of ancestors together on the bottom of the canyon. That particular why was unimportant to him as long as the ghosts left him in peace to pursue his studies.

He stepped to the edge and unfurled the sheet, letting the wind take what it wanted. The crumbly old bits wouldn’t last long enough to hit bottom, blown away as if they had never been. He opened his hands and let the defiled sheet follow. If the wind and the river didn’t take it, then some bottom dweller would be grateful for it. One more layer to keep the heat in, in the bottom of the canyon where ice sat in the cracks all year round. He untied his sleeves and let the wind shake the dust out before retreating back inside the warmed stone walls, sliding the night doors shut in the wind’s face.

The Emperor had kept him dancing attendance on him, all day and would probably want the same tomorrow. As an old man, he no longer slept much and could even call for company in the Dark of the night. He’s like a fussy child, cranky about going to sleep in case he doesn’t wake up again, keeping everyone around him sleepless and completely helpless to hand the infant in question off to a competent wet nurse. 

He paused, hovering over his new batch of fragments. Perhaps he should be looking for a spell to incapacitate the old man rather than kill him. That way he’d be off, locked into a quiet room, crapping into his sheets, being sponged off by nurses and leaving the work of Empire to others.