Governor Cassel returned my neck stretch. All right, that was a decent enough beginning. I did my best to ignore the people in the rubber suits, though they practically burned at the edges of my sight.

  "To what do I owe Your Excellency's visit?" Cassel's tone was pleasantly indifferent. This was of course a lie, but hey! He'd used my title. That wasn't bad either.

  "Her Magnificence summoned me."

  "I see." Cassel looked away. Naturally, he wouldn't question the Megarchon's orders, not with a Sabrewing standing right there. A common guard might believe they could get away with implying I was an impostor, but anything Cassel said would be attached to his name, and he wasn't stupid enough to risk his life by assuming it wouldn't reach the Megarchon's ears.

  I looked away, too. The storm clouds I'd seen in Avadantul had almost reached High Tomenedra now; it'd rain that night. I turned toward the clouds, just so I wouldn't have to look at the greensuits.

  "I hope the rain doesn't dey our flight," I said.

  "Oh, it likely won't. According to my weather predictors, it'll clear up before tomorrow morning. The heavy rain will come this Wednesday."

  I lowered my hat against the wind. "I better not miss my pne, then."

  He looked at the clouds and said nothing.

  Pretty sure he was dragging things out on purpose, likely hoping I'd get nervous and incriminate myself. In these situations, it's better to continue dragging things out, but I really didn't want to py the endurance game with those greensuits at my back.

  "You know," I said, "I don't expect you to apologize, it's fine."

  Cassel turned to me. "What do you suppose requires my apology?"

  Looked like I'd knocked him off-bance first. "Well, to begin with, Governor Cassel has just skipped my title. Other than that, it's not your fault, obviously. I think you weren't even in the city when it happened? It was yesterday afternoon—I had just arrived in the city with Sergeant Vargas, here present, and we were stopped by some guards who accused me of being some kind of criminal, and when I identified myself, they tried to cim I was faking my identity. I trust they'll be dealt with accordingly, of course."

  "And why was Your Excellency stopped by guards?"

  "Well, they thought I was attempting to meet some kind of criminal element, when in truth I was just passing by. The source of the confusion, you see, is that I took the Emperor's Path instead of boarding the shuttle." Cassel opened his mouth, but I wouldn't let him put a word in. "I simply wanted to take a good look at the carvings on the mountainside! Is that a crime? I don't think so!"

  "If Your Excellency was aware of the situation, you wouldn't have done that. These criminals attemp to hold this city hostage."

  "Can't your guards just arrest them all? I don't see why I should be the one inconvenienced, seeing how I didn't do anything. I didn't even have time to do anything!"

  "It's not so simple." He spread his hands open. "These strikers are nothing more than the lizard's tail. It can be regrown as many times as it must. To be rid of the problem, you must crush the head."

  Seeing how I hadn't been crushed yet, I wasn't under suspicion of being the reptilian brains—at least not yet. But clearly they believed I was associated to them, and I was beginning to see why.

  To shut those guards up, I'd shown them my snake bracelet. Even if they wouldn't guess I was connected to the King of the Dying Sun, specifically, I was obviously close to someone way too high in the ranks of the rich and powerful. I thought that'd make them leave me alone, because why would you mess with someone that far above you?

  But, apparently, they assumed this was the same person who supplied the strikers.

  Let Cassel believe I was just a fool being duped into doing someone else's errands, though, and I might be able to use this to my advantage.

  I nodded. "That makes sense. Though I must say, I don't know anybody like that. Like, at all."

  Cassel snorted. "Your Excellency doesn't know anybody in possession of a fortune? Someone capable of buying a rge quantity of supplies and easily transporting them across the continent, even past a blockade?"

  Wait, did he suspect Vanth specifically? That made a lot of sense. Maybe someone had recognized that bracelet. Maybe it had something to do with how the King of the Dying Sun could pop out of nowhere without warning, even if no necromancer was involved.

  I leaned toward him, doing my best to pretend wide-eyed surprise. "But you must have some kind of proof! You wouldn't make such cims without proof!"

  So ridiculous! Accusations without proof were the favored sport among the Protectorate's ruling css. That's how they got ahead. Of course the King of the Dying Sun couldn't be smeared as easily as a common governor. He wasn't anywhere near as easily repceable. But Cassel here seemed to be convinced Vanth was guilty of real treason.

  Cassel used his height to literally look down on me. Unfortunately for him, I'd been on my knees for men far more intimidating than him. What do you know? He looked away first.

  "The circumstantial proof we've gathered is more than enough," he said.

  "Such as?"

  "A certain person who shouldn't be involved in the ruling of the Protectorate has been interfering with the Two Chambers's decisions." The Two Chambers were the governors and ministers. Together with the Megarchon, their retives, and those hangers-on who achieved political influence, they formed what was informally known as the court. "We've found certain motorcycle tracks. The name of a certain person has been heard where certain crimes were committed. Also, anybody can easily contact this person from any post office in a major city. We believe the strikers have taken advantage of this."

  "Well, yes. That's what post offices are for." I was going to pretend to be a dumbass as long as possible. Sleep deprivation made it easy. "Wait! Only the guards have motorcycles! What are you implying?"

  Briefly, I caught sight of Valentino looking at me without showing any expression. He wouldn't be fooled by my act; to begin with, he knew perfectly well I'd seen Vanth's motorcycle. Hopefully he wouldn't hold this btant lie against me.

  "A select few others do as well." Cassel was getting snappier. Better not drag things out too long. "Among them, the person I mentioned."

  Well, it was always possible he wasn't talking about Vanth, but it was a reasonable enough guess. Could Vanth really be behind it, though? Honestly, the idea of him lugging bags of potatoes and flour all over the pce was so funny I would've loved it to be true, but it couldn't be very practical, unless Cassel knew something I didn't.

  If it wasn't him, though, who was supplying the strikers, and how?

  I chewed on my lower lip, busy thinking, but not about what Cassel thought I was thinking about. Was there anything I'd missed? The guards hadn't bothered closing the Emperor's Path, so that couldn't be the answer. And besides, the Path was somewhat hidden from sight, but you'd think someone would've noticed a whole convoy going up there. It's the same as those carvings on the mountanside. They might be hard to see from most angles, but someone had to have noticed.

  Wait a moment!

  The carvings on the side of the Tipilej-tepuy. Geometrical shapes of monumental size and exquisite precision. Had someone really gone through the hardship of carving them just for decoration? Maybe they did. People do a lot of weird things. But maybe—maybe they meant something. Maybe they were there for a reason. It's just that you couldn't ask the imperial stonecarvers anymore.

  Except—they had those knotted strings at the clinic. I'd seen them when I met Nina. They still knew how to read the strings.

  What if they could read the carvings, too?

  What if you could just look at the mountainside and know where to go?

  "It's a map! It's a map!"

  Cassel looked at me as if I'd gone crazy. His secretary directed the sourest of looks at me. Cassel's son simply looked confused. The guards, Valentino included, managed to conceal their reactions, but I could guess they felt pretty much the same as the others.

  I took a deep breath. "May I freshen up a bit? I've been awake for over twenty-four hours at this point."

  Cassel snorted. "By all means."

  I was shaking. Hopefully they'd think it was because of sleep deprivation—hells, at this point I didn't care if they bmed it on the greensuits. One of Cassel's guards escorted Valentino and me to the unfinished restrooms.

  Though I'd mostly wanted to give myself a break from Cassel's questioning, I did appreciate being able to spsh some cool water on my face. It didn't smell as good as the stuff from the hotel, but it was still way better than what I was used to.

  Careful now! I couldn't miss a step.

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember the carvings on the mountainside. My viewpoint hadn't been the best. I'd wondered if anybody got to look at them tely, but of course, the Khachimik had designed and carved them because they could be seen. From where, though?

  Oh.

  The Heruj-tepuy had risen above the other two mountains. Of course I had no proof, but I could've bet the third member of the Tepuy Trio had provided onlookers with a good view of the mountain carvings. What about now? Was there any suitable repcement?

  Well, some of the jungle trees were pretty tall. Not enough, but better than anything else. And, if you managed to climb one, you could probably take a good long look at the mountainside without any guards seeing you in turn.

  You could probably see anybody rising up the Emperor's Path like Valentino and me, too!

  The guard cleared his throat. I didn't know if that was meant to tell me to hurry up, but just in case, I went into one of the stalls and sat down to think in retive peace.

  What about the carvings? I'd gotten a distorted view of them. Did they look like something that could reasonably act as a map, though?

  One of the first things I'd seen, on the left and close to the top, was a grouping of three rectangles; a big one and two small ones piled up, one on top of the other. The big one and the small one on the bottom were pin, but the top small one had a line of rhombuses coming down from its side, as if the mountain had grown a braid.

  I remembered, then, Grandma Alba teaching me how to weave. I'd only tried it long enough to figure out I wasn't very good at it, but I'd liked watching as she made shapes out of woolen threads. Sometimes she'd weave a line of rhombuses exactly like that one.

  And once she'd said...

  "See, this is flowing water. Like the Rekul snaking toward El Meandro."

  What if the rectangles were the Tepuy Trio? The big one was Heruj-tepuy, the one with the braid Teferaj-tepuy with its waterfall, and the pin small one Tipilej-tepuy.

  Maybe I was remembering the rest wrong, but I could've sworn the rest of the carvings were wrapped in a line, and this line came out of the pin small rectangle.

  So—what if I'd seen a map of the Tipilej-tepuy, specifically?

  Unfortunately, I could remember only one other thing. Another rhombus line, this one bigger and longer, stretching horizontally across the bottom.

  Maybe it represented the river that ran toward I Lesecani. But it wasn't connected to the waterfall.

  An underground river?

  "Are you done?" the guard asked.

  "Can you leave His Excellency alone for five minutes?" Valentino replied.

  "Governor Cassel is dreadfully busy today. There's a lot going on that the public isn't privy to."

  "Give me a minute," I said.

  If the strikers could pump an underground river for water, that was one less thing to smuggle around. Rivers are also handy to transport all sorts of things. All I had was specution, but it made sense.

  Cassel wouldn't believe me because it was likely to be true, though. What mattered was that he wanted to believe it was true—and for whatever reason, he seemed to be already convinced that Vanth was behind the strikers. That's all he cared about. If I mattered to him, it was only as a weapon he could use against Vanth.

  When I returned from the restroom, everybody else had moved out of the wind and next to the elevator doors. Cassel stared at me in a really impolite way. But I had ten years of sleeping with men under my belt, often rich older men I wanted to keep reasonably happy, and I'd learned to pay attention to any small signs of displeasure. He was more intrigued than he probably wanted to admit to.

  "Well—" I started, "this sounds really weird, but I think I found the Rainbow Snakes in your city. Have you ever heard of the Rainbow Snakes? Of course everything they say about them is nonsense. Perhaps I should rather say I found a group that calls itself by that name. Yes, that's better."

  Cassel Jr took a step closer. I took a step back. "Do you cim the situation was caused by impersonators of some legend?" he asked.

  I looked down, pressing my lips tight. I was pretty good at the sad and helpless fa?ade, but I couldn't afford to overdo it. All I needed was to look confused enough not to come off like a schemer and weak enough for Cassel to underestimate me.

  "I make no cim, Mr Cassel. How could I? The situation was present before I reached the city, wasn't it? I simply suggest that some people took advantage of it. And possibly exacerbated it!"

  You've got to understand I was improvising this, rearranging my story on the go. This wasn't a problem, actually; I could see how Cassel reacted, so it was easier to change it if it wasn't having the desired reaction. Right then, I could see he was about to lose his patience with this talk of Snakes. Better to bring up something he really cared about.

  broccolifloret