Lacuna - N.R. Walker Page 0,75
could be made into a paste. The paste was then set in small clay canisters with a wick, of sorts, and when lit, the yanam heated, causing the canister to explode. The gaseous emission that billowed out was strong enough to knock out anyone and everyone who had the misfortune of being in that room, be it one man or twenty. She could throw one or two through the doorway, then have it zipped closed, wait a minute or two for the gas to clear, reopen the doorway, and walk in unbothered while the guards slept on the floor.
“Will it kill them?” Elmwood asked.
Samiel shook her head. “No. They will sleep for about five hours.”
Tancho held one of the yanam bombs in his hand, feeling the weight of it. “Do we want to know how you know this?”
She grinned. “There are old, old stories of goat herders who fed it to their herds and the goats fell over asleep. Then there are also stories of women who would put a tiny amount in their husband’s pipe, and when he’d had too much agave wine and fancied his chances for sex, she’d fetch him his pipe and he’d sleep until sun-up.” She chuckled. “Not sure which of these stories is true. Possibly both. But either way, it was soon learned that the yanam was a potent weapon. The people of Eastlands are prohibited to use it. Even before my time. But we have been practising ways to utilise it.”
Crow stared at her. “And you utilised it into hand-missiles that can knock twenty men out cold?” She nodded and Crow grinned. “I like it.”
“We live in peaceful times,” she went on to say. “And I have known no other way. Yet in my lessons, we learned of earlier days when people were not so kind. Before Aequi Kentron governed and brought peace and fairness . . . or so they had us believe.” Samiel frowned, and Crow felt the weight of her sorrow at being abandoned and lied to. Everything they’d known, everything they’d ever been told, had all been a ruse.
“We can have it again,” he said. “No matter what we find out, no matter what happens at the end of this. If the elders have failed us, if they have used us, then we shall see to their end. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have what we had before.” Crow looked at each of the three rulers. “We can forge our own consul, or something akin to it, when this is over. The truth is, what we had before worked, to some degree. I’m sure we could fine-tune it, but the model of how we lived in peace worked. We can have it again. Four lands, equal in every way. We can promise each other right now that not one of us is worth more than the other.”
Tancho nodded. “Agreed. The four of us, equal, always.”
“Agreed,” Elmwood said.
Samiel gave a serious nod. “Agreed.”
An older woman entered, with warm brown skin and grey braided hair, wearing Eastland red robes, carrying a book in her hands. It was bound in red leather, and it looked to be very old. “Samiel, I believe I have found what you’re after?”
Samiel stood and introduced her as Sirocco, her mentor. She took the book and turned it over in her hands. It also looked to be very familiar. Crow wasn’t the only one to think so, either. Elmwood pulled his green leather-bound book out and placed it on the table beside Samiel’s. The cut, the embossed emblem, the binding, the type of papyrus . . . Apart from the colour of the covers, they appeared to be identical.
“Mine is the same,” Tancho said. “But for the white cover.”
“And mine is black,” Crow said. “I didn’t note the details, though. So I can’t be certain, but it’s possibly a match as well.”
Elmwood turned to the first page, as did Samiel, and they both scanned each page, then looked up to Crow and Tancho. “They are the same,” Samiel said. “Except mine is for Eastlands, Elmwood’s is Southlands. They even look to be written by the same hand.”
“What is going on?” Elmwood asked quietly.
“Everything we’ve been taught, everything we knew to be our truth, is what they wanted us to know,” Tancho said. “We should go to my home and see what Asagi and Erelis have found. They may have discovered something we should know before we arrive at Aequi Kentron.”
Crow nodded. “I agree. Darkness will be