*21*

The Dasheter

In his cabin, the one that had been his father’s all those kilodays ago, Toroca examined the body of the diver by lamplight, the flame dancing to and fro as the Dasheter pitched on the waves.

The diver was an exquisite animal, about the length of Toroca’s arm and covered in fine silver fur. At first he didn’t know what to make of it. Fur was sometimes seen on certain plants, especially fungi and molds, and on the bodies of those flying reptiles known as wingfingers. Toroca had never heard of any land-dwelling or aquatic creature having it. Yet this one did: a good, thick coat of the stuff. He stroked it, saw that it had a nap, saw how it appeared to change color from a dark silver to almost white depending on which way the individual strands were deployed. It had an oddly revolting feel, this fur: thousands upon thousands of tiny fibers, moving back and forth almost like plants swaying in a breeze. He had to fight down the sensation that the filaments might pierce his skin, or fly loose to enter his nostrils or eyes. That the fur was oily just made the sensation even more unpleasant.

Although the body covering was disgusting, the creature’s head was fascinating. As he’d observed on the ice, it tapered to a pointed, toothed beak. Counterbalancing the beak was a long crest off the back of the skull, pointed in the opposite direction.

The diver had flippers held, in death, tightly against its side. Rigor hadn’t set in yet, although everything was a bit stiff in these cold temperatures. Toroca gently pulled the left flipper away from the body. He was surprised to find that it was rigid only along its leading edge. The rest of the flipper consisted of a thick mass of tissue, but seemed to be completely unreinforced by bone. In the middle of the flipper’s leading edge were three small red claws.

That was unusual. Five was the normal number of digits, of course. Some creatures, Quintaglios and blackdeaths among them, had fewer on their feet, and blackdeaths had only two on their hands. But three on the forelimbs was a rare number. Toroca took out his scalpel and sliced into the flipper, gently exposing the inner flesh.

Dark blood spilled out onto the worktable. He carved further into the flipper and saw that it was well padded with yellow fat. But it was the leading edge that he really wanted to see. He made an incision along the entire length of the flipper’s anterior margin, then used his hands to pull back the clammy flesh. It took a little twisting and yanking, but he soon had the bones that made up the front of the flipper exposed.

From the shoulder to the claws, there were two long bones, obviously the humerus and the radius — the upper and lower arm bones. At the end of the radius, there were the phalangeal bones of the three red-clawed fingers that protruded from the flipper, and then running along the remaining length of the flipper, from this tiny hand to its outermost tip, four long bones.

Four extraordinarily long phalangeal bones.

The bones of a fourth, vastly extended finger.

It was the same structure as in a wingfinger’s wing, the structure that gave those flying reptiles their name.

Toroca rolled the corpse over and pressed his own fingers into the corpse’s belly. They came up against a hard plate of bone.

A breast plate.

Suddenly the head crest made sense. Just like those in some flying reptiles.

This beast was a wingfinger.

A water-going wingfinger.

A wingfinger that swam through the cold waters the way its equatorial cousins flew through the air.

Toroca staggered back on his tail, the lamp flickering, the timbers of the ship groaning.

How does a wingfinger come to be a swimmer? How does a flyer take to the water?

What caprice of God was this?

*22*

Capital City: Haldan’s apartment

Var-Gathgol, the undertaker, felt out of his depth. It was bad enough that blind Afsan was here. Senior palace officials always were difficult to deal with. But now the Emperor himself had arrived. Gathgol had no idea how to behave in front of such important people.

Dybo was standing near Afsan — altogether too near, really; such easy proximity was uncomfortable even to watch. Gathgol had hoped to simply slip in, bundle up the body, and take it away in the wagon he had left outside the apartment block.

But someone — Gathgol thought perhaps it was the building’s administrator — had told him not to touch the corpse.

It was, indeed, an unusual set of circumstances.

Suddenly Gathgol felt a frightened rippling at the tips of his fingers. The Emperor himself was gesturing at him. At first Gathgol froze, but the waving of the Emperor’s arm became impatient and that spurred him into motion. He hurried across the room, taking care to avoid the pieces of broken glass on the floor.

"You’re the undertaker?" said the Emperor.

Gathgol bowed rapidly. "Yes, umm, Your, Your…"

"Luminance," said Dybo absently.

"Yes, Your Luminance. I cast a shadow in your presence."

"Do you know Sal-Afsan, a savant and my advisor?"

"By reputation, of course," stammered Gathgol. He tipped his body toward the blind one, then after a moment said, "I’m, uh, bowing at you." Afsan’s muzzle swiveled toward him, but that was his only response. Gathgol felt like a fool.

"And you?" said Dybo.

Gathgol was now completely confused. "I’m, uh, the undertaker. I’m sorry. I thought you wanted…"

Dybo made an exasperated sound. "I know what you do. What’s your name?"

"Oh. Gathgol. Var-Gathgol."

Dybo nodded. "How exactly did Haldan die?"

Gathgol gestured at the table. "Her throat was cut open by a jagged piece of mirror."

Afsan’s head snapped up. "Mirror? Is that what it is?"

Gathgol nodded. "Yes, mirror. That’s, um, glass with a silvered backing. You can, ah, see your reflection in it."

Afsan’s tone was neutral, perhaps that of one accustomed to such gaffes. "I appreciate your explanation, Gathgol, but I’ve not been blind my whole life. I know what a mirror is."

"My apologies," Gathgol said.

"How could a mirror cut one’s neck open?" asked Afsan.

"Well, the glass is broken," said Gathgol. "The pieces have a sharp edge — beveled, almost. A large section was drawn across her neck, quite rapidly, I should think."

"I don’t understand," said Afsan. "Did she trip somehow? I’ve felt with my walking stick for an obstacle but can’t find one."

"Trip, savant? No, she didn’t trip. She was probably seated on that stool when it happened."

"Did the mirror fall off the wall, then? Had it been mounted poorly? Was there a little landquake today?"

Gathgol shook his head. "A piece of art hangs on the wall above the table, savant. It’s still there now. A still life of some sort."

"A still life." Afsan nodded. "But then how did the accident happen?"

Gathgol felt his nictitating membranes fluttering. "It was not an accident, savant."

"What do you mean?"

Could a genius of Afsan’s rank be so thick? "Good Sal-Afsan, Haldan was killed. Deliberately. By an intruder, most likely."

"Killed," said Afsan slowly, as if he’d never heard the word, moving it around inside his mouth like an odd-tasting piece of meat. "You mean murdered?"

"Yes."

"Murdered. Somebody took her life?"

"Yes, savant."

"But surely it was dagamant, then — a territorial challenge of some sort, an instinctive reaction."

Gathgol shook his head. "No. This was planned, savant. We’ve gathered up all the shards of the mirror. They don’t form a complete rectangle. Somebody brought a large jagged piece of mirrored glass here, probably approached Haldan from behind, and, with a quick movement, slit her throat. The mirror was still partly in a wooden frame, and that gave it rigidity, as well as something for the assailant to hold on to without risking cutting his or her hands."