A Drop of Corruption

The next day, Ana and Din go to the Apoths’ “fermentation works,” where Din notes the absence of engravers, suggesting that the Apoths don’t wish their work to be seen and remembered. They enter a meeting room where Ana partakes in a “percolator” that offers physiological effects; she chooses one that acts as a stimulant and urges an exhausted Din to do the same. Ghrelin enters with Commander-Prificto Kulaq Thelenai, who, to Din’s surprise, comes ready with the desired list of Apoths with access to the lockbox. Thelenai also agrees to provide the list of stolen reagents, despite the magnitude of the task.

Ana quizzes Ghrelin about the stolen reagents. She is surprised when he reports that before working on the cures, he worked in the Shroud. Thelenai only reluctantly lets Ghrelin discuss his work there. He explains that the Shroud is based in part on leviathan bodies, but Thelenai will let him speak no more on this subject, due to the secrecy of the work. When Ana asks about Ghrelin’s time in the Shroud, he begins tapping on the table. He explains that “kani,” or titans’ blood, is “powerfully metamorphic”; when it encounters another organic substance, it alters that substance, often in unpredictable ways. Thelenai stops him before he can cite the source of the kani.

Ghrelin finds it unthinkable that one of his colleagues in the Shroud would have committed Sujedo’s murder; he and his colleagues work under terrible conditions to create reagents that benefit public health, and Ghrelin thinks of them as inherently good people. Ghrelin denies recognizing any part of the message from inside the lockbox. He is astonished when Ana taps on the table, apparently in imitation of his own tapping. Ana asks about the proposal to transport titan’s marrow, which Thelenai refuses to discuss. (Thelenai later reveals that she illegally augmented Apoths into “augurs” to complete this work.) She explains that no engravers are allowed in the building due to the secrecy of the untested work therein, but she also denies Ana a tour, explaining that she suspects Ana has secret alterations, something Ana does not confirm or deny. (At the end of the novel, it is implied that Ana is a part of the remade line of Khanum, the first people of the Empire, now extinct.)

Din recounts the details of their meeting, particularly visual clues that blindfolded Ana would have missed. She observes that Ghrelin seems “a true fanatic” and that a telltale green hue to Thelenai’s skin indicates her long-term presence in Yarrow (130). Din and Ana consider the Apoths’ non-reaction to discussions of marrow “rehearsed.” She mentions a graft that makes someone physically incapable of revealing a secret, though she does not believe Ghrelin underwent such a procedure. (Din later realizes that Ana is hinting at secrets that she physically cannot reveal to him.)

Ana’s astonishment grows when the Apoth records await her at her rooms. Reports on Ghrelin’s work history confirm his story. She explains that Ghrelin’s tapping imitates a language practiced by a small order of remote monks, though she cannot explain why he does this. (They later learn that this is how augurs communicate on the Shroud.) She translates Ghrelin’s message, which speaks repetitively of doom. His coded message indicates that he does not know the identity of the imposter. Ana opines that the Apoths want the imposter found, but that they are not willing to reveal their secret project to do so. She believes the contents of the box were related to the Shroud and to the mysterious marrow. (This is proven correct.)

Ana assigns Din to investigate the movements of forty-three Apoths. She asks about his satisfaction with investigative work, noting that his recent spate of casual sexual encounters has not seemed to bring him happiness. She knows about his desire to transfer to the Legion and asks how he feels about working for the Iudex. Din admits that he struggles to see how punishing a murderer after the crime is as valuable as preventing misfortune in the first place. She offers to write his recommendation when the time for a transfer comes, but she believes he will see the value in their work before then. He asks why Ana ascribes profound importance to justice, and she refuses to answer.

Ana is thrilled when her second lyre arrives. She explains that Yarrow lyre duets arise from the uncommon frequency of multiple births in the royal line, which the music was designed to represent. Politically, this led to complex questions of inheritance, often resolved through violence. (Ana later reveals that Pyktis is the twin of the prince of Yarrow.) She begins playing. Din reflects on how little he knows about Ana; she says she will only tell him about her augmentations and history when she is required to do so.

Din speaks to numerous officers from Ana’s list but learns nothing. He pays Madam Poskit and has an emotionally unsatisfying sexual encounter. When he seeks to speak with Prificto Kardas, he is directed to the western edge of Old Town. He finds a crude fort, guarded by Yarrow soldiers. He finds a carriage full of weeping people. A guard chases him away, explaining that the people are “fugitives” who have “broken their oaths to their lords and fled their sworn vows” (145). He refuses to answer more questions, citing their presence on Yarrow land.

Kardas approaches and introduces the surly guard as Thale Pavitar, a priest in the Yarrow court. Kardas means to put off his interview with Din. Satrap Danudo Dari, the Yarrow king’s closest advisor, gives Din a strange silver coin. (This “oathcoin” can compel a noble or royal of Yarrow to comply with a request made by its bearer.)

When Din encounters Malo on his way back to Yarrowdale, she explains that the captives were “naukari” or “ancestral servants,” whose servitude is heritable across generations. Din likens this to slavery, but Malo notes that the legal difference is that naukari’s bondage is inseparable from the land they work. They cannot be sold from one estate to another, and they are bound to their specific lands unless the landowner frees them, a rare occurrence. She considers the practice “abominable.”

Malo reports interviewing a canal fisherman who saw a kidnapped man dressed in Imperial robes being taken by smugglers from their camp to the city. Ana reluctantly gives Din permission to accompany Malo to raid the camp.

Din meets Malo early the next day to sail along the canal. They join a group of wardens, trained to roust smugglers. One warden is one of Din’s former sexual partners. Malo notes their connection and warns him against any further liaisons. They travel quietly to seek smugglers, who are adept at fleeing. The other wardens are cautious of Din due to their lack of familiarity with Sublimes. They eagerly question him about his time at Talagray and about the Emperor. Din explains that the Emperor is the last of the Khanum, the first people of the Empire, and that he has been kept alive for centuries using grafts. The wardens are unconvinced that the Khanum were ever real. Din explains that the Khanum augmented themselves so profoundly that they were no longer fully human. This stopped them from reproducing, and they died out. Din explains that as a Sublime, he, too, is infertile.

The next morning, the wardens scent a body in the water. They are horrified to find a body that has been violently torn apart by plant life, which apparently grew from within the living person. They don protective helms and approach the camp. When they find a man who has been almost entirely turned to vines, Din recognizes this as the “powerfully metamorphic” work of the kani. They follow a path of transformed bodies to an impenetrable thicket of strange flowers, which Din recognizes as the same growth that surrounds a felled titan.

The camp is altered in its entirety, every living thing transmuted into something else. Through their horror, the group realizes that the origin point of the transmutations appears to be a teapot-like apparatus, which Malo recognizes as something used in the fermentation works. They find a stretched animal hide covered in symbols. On it is written “And all the world a savage garden, mindless and raging” (174). They quickly flee the scene, uncertain if contagion lingers.

Din suspects, from the layout of the camp, that the smugglers let the imposter set up his contraption, though they evidently did not know the destruction it would wreak. He suspects that the message left behind was for Ghrelin, given his facility with codes. He suddenly notes broken foliage in places their group didn’t tread. Malo, frantic, rushes back to the boat, where the wardens battle smugglers. There is a short but fierce battle, which the wardens easily win.

Din and the wardens re-board the boat, where they tend to a wounded smuggler. Din’s blood is tested with a “blotley larvae,” a sensitive parasite that will die if there is contagion in Din’s blood. This augmented version, Din learns, cannot survive independent of a host and will eat until full, then will leak blood back into the host. (This is eventually revealed as Pyktis’s method for posing as Sujedo through blood wards; he absorbed Sujedo’s blood with the larvae, then put it into himself.) The blotley larvae leaves a large, red sore on Din’s skin. All the other wardens prove uncontaminated as well.

Din, with Malo as translator, interrogates the surviving smuggler, Latha. Latha explains that he was absent during the disaster that killed his whole camp. His people, he explains, were visited by “the pale king” with “the invisible eye that predicts all” (185). (This references Pyktis’s augury.) This king always wore a helm and spoke Pithian, the local language, perfectly. The pale king would give the smugglers accurate information about how to intercept Imperial shipments. This brought wealth to the camps. The pale king also gave them access to Imperial medicines and built a percolator. Latha confirmed that the pale king constantly tapped and gives them directions to a “shrine” he often visited.

The shrine is built in an abandoned dam. The area is filled with “eerie stone sculptures” and a throne (189). Offerings indicate that the smugglers worshipped the pale king. A pot contains the boiled remnants of strange nuts; local animals died after eating them. (These kerel nuts are later used to poison the Yarrow king and Gorthaus.) Din digs beneath a stone sculpture that is untouched by plant life and finds a small box. Inside is another of the rare oathcoins. Malo hopes that this “pale king” did not intend them to find the shrine.