The Surgery of Heresy

The reek of vinegar and gangrene rose through the grating before Overseer Kazuma set foot upon the boarding plank. Beneath the damp basalt overhang of Waystation Seven, the penal skiff Kuro-take hung suspended in her iron cradle, groaning against the mooring chains as thirty-knot thermal drafts buffeted her scarred cedar flanks. Kazuma adjusted the obsidian baton tucked beneath his sash, his fingers resting on the sanctified copper brands cooled in their leather scabbards. He did not come for trade manifests this morning. He came to inspect six conscript gunners reported for mutinous destruction of state artillery, men who had reportedly refused to clear their mortar tubes during the morning descent through the middle shear.

Provost Noboru followed two paces behind, the serrated edge of his baric cleaver wrapped in oiled hemp. The enforcer’s boots struck the slick timber deck without a sound.

"The transit lock above remains sealed, Overseer," Noboru murmured, his gaze sweeping the empty rigging where penal convicts hung like soaked crows, watching them from the cross-trees. "The garrison at Waystation Seven has halted eleven supply barges on the upper ring. But the harbor master confirms the royal sloop Kasumi-maru slipped her moorings two watches before our lockdown dispatch arrived. She is already dropping toward the lower shelf."

"A captain who runs without stamped munitions vouchers is either an idiot or an apostate," Kazuma said, his voice flat as hammered lead. "We will deal with Captain Tomoki in the lower throat. First, we determine why this vessel's battery fell silent."

They descended the narrow companionway into the orlop deck. Down here, below the waterline of the air-currents, the ventilation ports were choked with damp sacking to keep out the sulfur vapor. Lanterns of clouded horn threw yellow rings across rows of canvas hammocks dripping with sweat and bilge. At the far end of the compartment, past the reeking vinegar tubs, an iron brazier cast red light over an oak trestle table bolted to the deck beams.

A man in a gore-stiffened canvas apron stood over the table, muttering curses through a mouthful of copper wire. He wore round spectacles with chipped frames, and his grey hair was gathered in a ragged knot pinned by an ivory bodkin. When his bone saw grated against something dense and metallic, a sharp screech echoed off the ceiling knees.

"Hold the lantern steady, boy," Surgeon Ryosei snapped without looking up. A trembling orderly held a tallow dip near a convulsion of bare limbs on the table. "If you drop hot fat into an open tendon again, I will sew your ears to your collar."

"Surgeon," Kazuma spoke, halting at the foot of the table.

Ryosei paused, the saw poised three inches above a man's bared wrist. His spectacles caught the lantern glare, blank and insolent. Slowly, he removed the copper wire from his teeth and laid it beside a tray of notched pincers.

"Overseer," Ryosei said, his tone dry as kiln-dried oak. "The Citadel sends silk robes to the butcher's shop. If you came to collect the head tax, I have three jars of ears and half a bucket of gangrenous toes behind the water cask. Take your pick for the ledger."

Noboru shifted his weight, his hand dropping toward the hilt of his cleaver. Kazuma raised a single finger, checking the enforcer.

"You harbor six conscript bombardiers accused of spiking their mortar carriage during the drop from Shinano," Kazuma said. "Destruction of royal ordnance carries the sentence of drop-shaft execution. Bring them forward."

Ryosei gave a short, rattling cough that ended in a dry smirk. He gestured with the dripping saw toward the man strapped to the trestle. "You're looking at the gun captain, Overseer. Number Three mortar. Name is Goro. He did not spike his carriage. He tried to obey your regulations and ram a fresh anchor charge into the breech."

Kazuma stepped closer, his silk robes brushing the gore-streaked planking. The wounded conscript was conscious, biting down on a leather gag soaked in clove oil, his eyes wide and yellowed with fever.

The man's right arm was not gripping the bronze ramrod.

It had become the ramrod.

Kazuma stared. From the midpoint of the forearm down, the human flesh had receded into a calcified shell of iridescent grey-black chitin. Muscle, sinew, and skin had fused seamlessly into the fluted metal neck of the loading tool. Where the bone of the wrist should have articulated, thick veins of hardened marrow bulged beneath an armor of segmented scales, binding living tissue directly to cast bronze. Deep within the seam where flesh met metal, tiny pores wept an oily, phosphorescent bile that hissed against the wood of the table.

"He refused an order to drop the tool," Ryosei said in a weary drawl, reaching with two fingers to tap the calcified forearm. A dull clink of iron on bronze rang out. "His petty officer struck him with a cudgel to break his grip. Broke two ribs, but the fingers didn't open. Because they aren't fingers anymore, Overseer. They are thirty pounds of naval bronze welded to the ulna."

"Sorcery," Noboru growled from behind his lacquered guard. "A sump-curse."

"Not sorcery, you armored ox," Ryosei muttered, picking up a heavy cold-chisel and a wooden mallet from his instrument roll. "It's the marrow. You Citadel lords feed these poor bastards rations cut with abyssal squid oil to keep their lungs from popping in the high shear. Then you pack the guns with powder that's been stewing in the same rot. The man breathes the smoke, sweats into the breach, and the powder decides his bones make better iron than his mother did."

Kazuma felt an icy constriction settle behind his ribs. He recalled the sixteen porcelain jars smashed in the dark hold of the Asahi-maru only three hours ago, their pale, curdled contents writhing with segmented larvae under his brand. The shipping manifests had named Arsenal Nine of the Koryu Celestial Guard. The corruption had not crept into the fleet by chance; it was being funneled into the magazines from the very top of the Citadel's supply chain.

"Can the bronze be excised?" Kazuma asked, his voice steady despite the cold weight in his chest.

"I can cut through flesh," Ryosei said, setting the chisel against the junction of chitin and bronze. "I can cut through bone. But the marrow inside the arm has already petrified into slag. Watch."

Ryosei struck the chisel with the wooden mallet. A muffled crack sounded. The conscript bucked against his hemp restraints, a muffled shriek bursting past the leather gag. From the hairline fracture in the chitin, no crimson blood emerged; instead, a thick, green-tinted phosphor sludge bubbled forth, smoking faintly as it touched the cold air. The stench of burned hair and sulfur filled the cramped compartment.

"Break it deeper," Ryosei said, leaning close to Kazuma with mock deference, "and the bone detonates like a pocket pistol. I lost my third orderly yesterday because he tried to pry a bronze trigger-guard off a loader's thumb. The thumb blew his jaw off."

Kazuma stared at the smoking fissure. His legalistic catechisms offered no rubric for an enemy that did not rebel with swords or pamphlets, but remade the flesh of the empire into the weapons that killed it.

"The other five gunners?" Kazuma asked.

"In the forward hold," Ryosei replied, wiping a smear of dark gore from his spectacles with the hem of his dirty apron. "One is grafted to a sponge-staff. Two are fused at the knees to the recoil tracks of the starboard mortar. If you want to execute them for treason, bring an anvil. A rope around the neck won't pull them off the deck."

Kazuma straightened, the hem of his immaculate ceremonial mantle brushing the edge of the blood bucket. The ship groaned beneath them as a violent gust shook the cradle outside, the mooring chains clanking in rhythmic cadence.

"How many charges on this vessel remain stable?" Kazuma demanded.

"Stable?" Ryosei barked a dry laugh. "None of them are stable. But if you mean charges that explode outward instead of eating their loaders, we have perhaps twenty downward canisters in the forward magazine. Enough to kick this miserable tub down the shaft, provided we don't mind the guns humming nursery rhymes while we drop."

"Noboru," Kazuma commanded, his gaze fixed on the surgeon. "Go to the bridge. Relieve the master of the watch. Inform him that by inquisitorial authority of the High Citadel, the Kuro-take is requisitioned for immediate transit."

Ryosei froze, the mallet dangling from his hand. "Requisitioned? This is a hospital skiff, Overseer. We are packed with amputees and dying conscripts."

"The transit locks above are closed," Kazuma said, his eyes drilling into Ryosei's spectacles. "The Kasumi-maru has descended without inspection, carrying three hundred compromised barrels into the lower reaches. If she attempts to fire her battery in the drop-shaft, her ordnance will detonate inward and shatter the middle wind-currents. We plunge immediately."

Ryosei shook his head, a sour grimace twisting his mouth. "Chasing a royal sloop in a floating butcher shop. The High Council truly picks its finest theologians for command."

Surgeon Ryosei turned back to the table, using his wrapped hand to steady the conscript's arm. Kazuma noticed the heavy linen bindings around the surgeon's left wrist, stiff and brown with dried fluids, wound tightly all the way to the knuckles. Beneath the frayed edges of the linen, a hard, greyish ridge pressed against the cloth, but Kazuma did not pry; every man in the lower shaft carried some measure of the void's rot.

Kazuma pulled the heavy wooden dispatch ledger from the orderly's desk. Uncapping his brass inkstone, he dipped his obsidian signet into the vermilion paste and brought it down hard upon the parchment, sealing the ship's fate to the hunt below. Outside the hull, the first warning horns of Waystation Seven sounded the descent clearance into the abyss.