“A netherling,” Dreadaeleon said. “That’s what they call themselves.”
“Yeah, but necropsy subjects are usually categorized by their scholarly names in old Talanic,” she said. “This is. .” She gestured helplessly over the corpse. “New.”
“True, they haven’t really been discovered yet, have they?” Dreadaeleon tapped the charcoal to his chin, quirking a brow. “Except by us. We could call it something slightly more scholarly.” He stared down at his paper thoughtfully. “How do you say ‘head-stomping bloodthirsty she-beast’ in old Talanic?”
“The subject shall be known as ‘Heretic,’” Bralston said simply. “The Venarium will make proper notation when I deliver the report.”
She fixed him with an unyielding stare. “Others interested in medicine might want to know what we discover.”
Dreadaeleon cringed preemptively. As a Librarian of the Venarium, Bralston was the penultimate secretive station to an organization whose standard reply to requests for the sharing of information typically fell under a category marked “crimes against humanity and nature.” And as a much meagerer member of the same organization, Dreadaeleon could but wince at Bralston’s impending reaction.
He felt more foolish than surprised when Bralston merely sighed.
“Netherling will do for the moment,” he said.
He was still surprised, though he suspected he ought not be. Bralston, curt to the point of insult, seemed to have a patience for Asper that Dreadaeleon found deeply confusing.
And unnerving, he thought as he noted the smile Bralston cast toward her.
“Proceed,” he said gently. “Please.”
Dreadaeleon took a bit more pleasure than he suspected he should have in Asper’s lack of a returned smile. She didn’t smile much at all lately, not since that night on the ship. She barely said anything, either. Only after the necropsy was requested did she even deign to say two words to him.
Another thing he took pleasure in. Another thing to be ashamed of. Later, though.
“Fine,” she said, turning back to the corpse. “Netherling.” She took up the scalpel between two fingers. “Incision one.”
Amongst the various descriptors she used for necropsy, “easy” wasn’t one of them. The scalpel did not so much bite seamlessly into the netherling’s cold flesh as chew through it, the incision requiring both hands and more than a little sawing to cut open. When it was finally done, her brow glistened along with the innards.
“First note,” she grunted, setting the scalpel aside, “she’s made out of jerked meat.”
“Subject displays remarkable resilience of flesh,” Dreadaeleon muttered, scribbling.
“Now what the hell was wrong with what I said?” Asper snapped.
He blinked. “It. . uh. .”
“Oh, good. Write that down instead.” She glowered at him for a moment before turning it to the opened corpse. “There’s so much muscle here.” Her incisions were less than precise as she cut through the sinew. “Organs appear intact and normal, if slightly enlarged.” She prodded about the creature’s innards with the scalpel. “No sign of rotting. Intestine is shorter than that of a human’s.”
“Carnivorous,” Bralston observed. “All of this suggests a predatory bent.”
“Possibly,” Asper said, nodding sagely, “that conclusion would be supported by their teeth and the fact that they’ve tried to kill us several times already. Of course they’re predatory, you half-wit.”
Dreadaeleon swallowed hard, looking wide-eyed to the Librarian. Bralston’s face remained a dark, expressionless mask. He nodded as easy as he might have if she had asked if he had wanted tea. Preferable to a gesture that preceded incineration, but the boy couldn’t help but be baffled at his superior’s seeming obliviousness to the priestess’s attitude.
“Continue, then,” he said.
Asper, too, seemed taken aback by this. Though her disbelief lasted only as long as it took her to pick up the bonesaw.
“Her ribcage is. . thick,” she said, applying the serrated edge to the bone. After three grinding saws, she took the tool in both hands. “Really thick. This is like cutting metal.”
“It can’t be that hard,” Dreadaeleon said. “I’ve seen Gariath break their bones before.”
“Really?” Asper said without looking up. “A hulking, four-hundred pound monstrosity can break metal? I feel as though your intellect may be wasted on simply taking notes.”
At that, Dreadaeleon did more than merely cringe. “Look, I don’t know what I did to upset you, but-”
“Continue, please,” Bralston interrupted. His words were directed at Asper, though his glare he affixed to Dreadaeleon.
“But I-” the boy began to protest.
“Continue.”
“Fine,” the word was muttered both by Asper and Dreadaeleon at the same time.
It took a few more moments of sickening sawing sounds before Asper finally removed the bonesaw, more than a few teeth broken off its blade. Dreadaeleon did not consider himself a squeamish man; having cooked people alive with his hands and a word tended to preclude such a thing. Yet there was something about this necropsy, of the many he had witnessed, that made him uneasy.
The priestess’s hands were soaked and glistening a dark red. She hadn’t requested any gloves and snapped at him when he had suggested it. She used only a damp cloth to clean up, and barely at that. When she mopped her brow, red stains were left behind and she continued, heedless, as she plucked up the pliers.
Of course, he thought, perhaps it weren’t the operation that made him cringe so much as the operator. He had never seen her like this, never heard her like this. Her pendant, the phoenix of her patron god Talanas, was missing from her throat; a rare sight grown more common of late.
What happened to you on that ship?
And he might have asked, if he weren’t silenced by the deafening crack of a ribcage being split apart.
“Huh,” she said, brows lofting in curiosity. “That’s interesting.” She reached inside, prodding something within the corpse with her scalpel.
“What is it?” Bralston said.
“This thing has two hearts.”
Dreadaeleon’s face screwed up. “That’s impossible.”
“You’re right, I’m lying about that.” She rolled her eyes. “Come up and see for yourself.”
It was more a dare than anything else, if her tone was any indication, and Dreadaeleon half considered not taking it. But he rejected that; he couldn’t back down in front of her. Perhaps she was challenging him, personally. Perhaps whatever plagued her now, he could fix. She knew that, and he knew that he couldn’t do that if he backed down.
So he rose and he walked over to the corpse and he instantly regretted doing so.
The dead netherling met his gaze, her white eyes still filled with hate so long after being dragged lifeless out of the ocean. He swallowed hard as he looked down to the creature’s open ribcage. Amidst the mass of thick veins and-Asper hadn’t been lying-muscle everywhere, he saw the organs: a large, fist-shaped muscle and a smaller, less developed one hanging beside it.
“So. .” He furrowed his brow, trying to force himself not to look away. “What does that mean?”
“It could be one of many possibilities,” Bralston suggested. “Perhaps it was something specific needed for wherever they come from. Past necropsies of creatures from harsh environments have revealed special adaptations.”
“Perhaps,” Asper said, “or perhaps she’s just a mass of ugly muscle and hate so big that she needed a second heart, like I assumed in the beginning.”
“Funny,” Dreadaeleon said.
“What is?” she asked.
“I don’t know, I would have thought you’d enjoy this.” He looked up at her and saw her blank expression. He coughed, offering a weak smile. “I mean, you always showed an interest in physiology. It’s something that your church teaches you, right? When we were beginning, when we first met up with Lenk, he would always have us, you and I that is, cut up whatever animal we killed to see if we could get anything edible. Remember?”