Page 31 of The Book that Broke the World

Reflex and a measure of her own kindness had Celcha opening her mouth to tell Lutna that it wasn’t her fault. But she clamped her lips closed against the words. A fault like this didn’t have neat boundaries. You couldn’t draw a line and say that those standing on this side were blameless and those on the other guilty. It was like the Dust. You might walk until you thought you’d left it far behind you, you might cross the badlands, climb the mountains, put it beyond your sight, build a new house and sleep easy. Only to wake and find that on neglected shelves the dust still gathered, and to know that however far you walked you would never be truly clean.

The ganar slept in small, unlit cells around a large square room where they socialised in the brief time between labours ceasing and sleep claiming them. Given that the ganar sleep cycle had been set by the rotation of another world, and that they were required to work at all hours, the central room always hosted some fraction of the population just in from their shifts. Lutna had timed the visit so that the pair she held in so much affection were sitting with three others at the table where a single lamp burned. All of them were slightly smaller than Celcha, their fur darker and a little longer.

“Princess!” A male with greying fur stood from his chair and opened his arms.

“F’nort!” Lutna threw herself into his embrace.

An elderly female, presumably H’run, stood with an exclamation that sounded like something in the language Lutna had learned from them.

Celcha waited in the doorway, the palace guard behind her, the woman’s plume brushing the ceiling of the corridor and already thick with gathered cobwebs.

“I’ve brought someone to see you.” Lutna broke from F’nort’s arms and looked towards Celcha.

With a measure of reluctance, Celcha stepped into the room, feeling like an animal on display.

H’run crossed the room towards her, bobbing her head in a curious way. Celcha could see that her blade claws had been trimmed rather than burned out, abraded to just a hard line across the backs of her hands, parallel to her fingers.

“Hello.” H’run bobbed her head again. “What clan are you, dearie?”

“I... I don’t know.” Celcha knew the names of a few clans, but they had never been important at the dig.

“It’s not important, I suppose.” H’run tutted. “You look Rayan to me.”

“Maybe I am.” Celcha attempted to sound agreeable, not wanting to offend the old woman.

H’run patted Celcha’s shoulder. “Rayans aren’t so bad. Too clever. Always getting themselves into trouble. But good-hearted.”

Celcha wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I’m pleased to hear it?”

H’run nodded. “Come. Sit.” She turned and headed back towards the table. Lutna was already sitting beside F’nort, showing him a book she’d pulled from her satchel. Celcha’s heart missed a beat just as it still did every time she looked up to see Hellet with a book in his lap. Cruelty’s reach was as long as that of blame. She wouldn’t ever forget how Hellet came to be broken.

She took one of the empty chairs and sat while Lutna regaled the ganar with tales of the library. She included Celcha in the stories and spent most of the time talking about the ganar chamber. Her audience nodded approvingly and asked questions—some even directed at Celcha, which she answered using as few words as politeness required.

Lutna seemed pleased with the whole business and got F’nort to speak some of the tongue that most of the palace ganar shared. The words meant nothing to Celcha, but she preferred the way it sounded in her ears to the harsh piping of humans or the slightly terrifying growls of the canith when speaking their main language.

At last, as it became obvious that the elderly ganar could keep away from their beds no longer, Celcha asked the question that Hellet had wanted her to put to them.

“Do you know anyone who works in the city gas room?”

Celcha wasn’t sure what kind of answer she was expecting, but the knowing grins around the table weren’t it.

“I didn’t know they knew about that in the library.” F’nort showed his teeth. “Never saw the other two down there.”

“I...” Celcha didn’t know how to reply. Of course the librarians knew there was a central supply for the gas that lit the city’s lamps, cooked their food, and warmed their homes.

H’run patted her shoulder again. “Don’t worry, dearie, everyone gets homesick even when they’ve never been there.”

“We go in the back,” F’nort said, yawning hugely. “Green door. Ask for H’seen, she’ll sort you out. Probably have to come back in a month, though. Always a queue.”

Lutna finally took the hint and stood up to go, releasing the ganar to their beds. Regular sleep was the only mercy Myles Carstar had granted the slaves at the dig, and that only because if you kept a ganar up too long past their bedtime you generally ended up with a dead ganar. The only reason that keeping them awake wasn’t one of the official cruelties was that it was too hard to judge the line between discomfort and death.

Lutna led the way back through the palace. By the time they reached the shade of the pillared entrance and found Jhar waiting, Celcha still hadn’t worked out a way to get the princess to take her to the gas room.

Hellet’s request had come just as she was leaving the library. She was to ask the question if she met any ganar. There hadn’t been time to quiz him about it, but Celcha’s brother wasn’t given to idle talk. Clearly it was important to him, so Celcha wanted to return with more than just a name. However, an industrial building where they piped flammable gas didn’t seem like the place for even a distant heir to the throne to tour, and even if it was, Celcha didn’t have a good reason for visiting or any idea why the other ganar had acted as they had.

“We should go to the gas room,” Lutna said as Jhar joined them.

“That doesn’t sound very suitable, Princess Lutna,” Jhar growled.

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