66

Control pushes the corpses apart, giving Vecla easy access. But the ophidians were thorough.

"They bashed their skulls open before leaving," Vecla reports. Then she springs back as someone moves at the bottom of the pile.

"A Painted Guardian!" the herbalist cries.

As controllers clear the dead away, one eye fixes on you. (The other has a bone dagger driven into it.) The man's tattoos are different from those you saw at the Apostolic Mound. They look crude—ugly and misshapen—as if the skin beneath has become infected.

"What are you?" Therko asks, kneeling.

"A plaything," the dying man whispers, "of the snake people. Their word is 'experiment.' But we nearly escaped. Nearly." He gestures in the direction of the clawed footprints, then he seems to notice Therko for the first time. "You are what they wanted to make, but they only made me, and the hard-as-stone paint on my skin poisoned my blood."

"You were still one of us," Therko says, drawing an obsidian knife.

Control gives you a quick, sharp glance. She recognizes Therko's sense of obligation and wants to interrogate the man first.