Anyone? Or just anyone Exalt? Maybe it was the symbiont that did it.
She chewed on a mouthful of snot, stuffed the side of her fist into her mouth, and folded tighter. Stop it, ordered her lingering rational urges. She wasn't going to let anyone make her cry. Not Mallory, and not some dead Engineer. She bit her hand and forced control. "Orphans dream of being secret princesses," she said.
Perceval must not have heard her, because she made one of those indistinct encouraging noises that people make, and massaged Rien's shoulders. After a moment, Rien managed to lift her head and repeat herself: "Orphans. Dream of being secret princesses."
Perceval's thumbs made firm circles in Rien's muscles. "And so?" she said. "You are."
A peculiar emotion swept over Rien. She was furious— not specifically with Perceval, but Perceval got caught in the edge of it. But Rien did not want Perceval to stop touching her.
It seemed unfair to ask to be held while you yelled at someone, so Rien swallowed it down. And said instead, "Oh, yeah, a princess with a belly full of bugs and a sister out of nowhere and a dead man in her head." She sniffled and hugged her knees, not crying. Gavin seemed not to have moved at all since the drama started; he might have been a statue of a basilisk. Rien didn't look at him.
She said, "I never had these problems before I met you."
That made Perceval laugh, and hand her the discarded snack.
"Eat," Perceval said. "Don't waste food. You'll need it eventually."
And Rien supposed that was right. If Perceval could eat while being fed in chains, Rien could eat now. She put the bread in her mouth, bit down, and chewed. The onions were pungent and sweet and soft; the cheese sharp, but tasty. It made her sniffle again. "Perceval," she said, when she had swallowed the mouthful, "why did you challenge Ariane?"
"Because she needed to be challenged," Perceval answered. Rien thought she didn't notice that Pinion flexed when she spoke, a gesture halfway between a falcon mantling its prey, and a cringe. "We met—I was on errantry. She was behaving villainously. I thought I was stronger than she. What do you mean you have a dead man in your head?"
"Mallory gave me a peach," Rien answered. She chewed more bread to buy time, but had to wash it down with a mouthful of water. "It had an Engineer's memories in it."
Perceval's face lit up. "Which Engineer? You said Ng?"
Rien nodded.
"Hero Ng." There was reverence in Perceval's voice. It startled Rien. "You have his memories?"
"I don't know. Some. I remember him dying"— Perceval flinched in sympathy—"and I remember that there should be a side corridor here"—Rien sketched a map quickly in skin-oil on the floor—"that's not on our map. Are there cannibals there?"
"I don't know," Gavin said, flicking himself loose from the wall plug with a flourish. "It's not in my memory banks either. Shall we try it and see if they eat us, then?"
Once they got the door open—easy, after they found it beneath the overgrowth; the keypad code hadn't been changed since Ng's day—they were greeted by a stench like tannin and ammonia. "Space." Perceval pinched her nose shut. "I can see why it's not on the map."
"At least we have boots now," Rien said, flexing her toes in the shoes Mallory had given them. Something fluttered inside the corridor, a rustling like the nighttime gnawing of thousands of mice, and there were sounds, squeaks so high she felt rather than heard them: a bone-conduction vibration.
"Bats," Gavin said. With heavy wingbeats, he flapped into the air, and wobbled toward Rien.
"Hey!" She ducked aside, but his great dry feet clutched her shoulder. She expected the grip and stab of talons, but they scarcely pricked, and then he was balancing on her shoulder as lightly as on a branch, his tail slipped once around her neck, heavy and leathery and warm. And far more pleasant than she would have expected.
"I'm not dragging my tail through that." Primly, with a flip of his long, crossed primary feathers. "You wanted to go this way. We're going this way. And you can carry me."
"Oh, whatever." But Rien didn't push him off her shoulder. "It's dark in there."
"I know," Gavin said. "You're going to expect me to light your way again, aren't you?"
"Well," Rien said, "if I could see in the dark, I wouldn't."
Perceval, a step behind, cleared her throat. "By now you should be able to."
"I beg your pardon?"
"The dark. You should be able to see in it. Not total dark, of course, but—"
"Oh," Rien said. "Of course. The symbiont."
"Sorry," Perceval said, her voice all small and almost
lost under the distressing sounds of the bats.
"It's all right." And squaring her shoulders, Rien
walked forward. "I invited myself."
It was awful. Gavin did shed some light—just barely enough. And Rien could have done with less.
The guano sucked at her boots. She sank into it, and it fell all around them like a chunky, whispering rain, and bats disturbed by the glow swooped down to investigate. Whether they were dazzled or angry, some of them flew into Rien. After one such collision, Gavin shifted abruptly on her shoulder, and she heard a flutter and a crunch.
And then more crunching.
She did not turn to look. "You're not."
"Not what?"
"You're a machine," she said. "You don't eat."
"Oh, very well." He must have discarded the bat with a cranelike flick of his serpentine neck. Rien was glad she couldn't see it. In fact, she told herself, she might as well be blind in that eye. There was nothing to see.
Until something as big as a large dog lunged out and scooped up the discarded bat before vanishing again, back into the unrelieved dark.
Rien bloodied her lip between her teeth, but managed somehow not to scream. Behind her, Pinion's agitated flapping did them no favors with the bats; Rien shielded her head with both arms and half crouched, eyes squinched nearly shut. "Shit. Shit. Shit."
"Only to the ankles," Gavin observed. "It hasn't even pulled your shoes off yet."
"Gavin," Perceval said, with steely calm, "what was that?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "Scavenger? It was humanoid."
"That's reassuring." Rien felt Perceval fold her parasite wings around them both, although Pinion was invisible in the darkness when Perceval damped its luminescence. They were still warmer than ambient, and Rien had no idea how that worked.
She took a breath. "Hey," she called out. "Stranger—"
No answer. But somewhere in the darkness, she heard a sound she recognized from Head's kitchen; the sound of flesh stripped back from bone. And then there was crunching, and Rien gagged on the remnants of her own ' frugal luncheon.
"Space," Perceval said, and then, "Poor creature."
Rien tried for human charity, but couldn't seem to get past nausea. "How long do you think it's been trapped here?"
"Long enough," Perceval said. "We have to help."
"He'll probably give you rabies," Rien said, although there was no rabies in the world and never had been. They still learned about it in biology, though; some of its elements had been used to splice the inducer viruses.
Those were illegal now. In Rule, anyway. Not that Rien thought it would have any effect on the Conns if they decided to use them.
Beyond the border of the light, Rien heard gnawing.
"It's errantry," Perceval said. "You go where it takes you, and mend what you find that needs mending."
Before Rien could remind her that they were on a quest a little more direct that errantry, Perceval had pushed past her. Cold air stroked Rien's arms where the wings had cupped. They floated over Perceval's back, now faintly luminescent and incredibly visible.