The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere

Inner Sanctum Underground | 9:33 AM | ∞ Day

Well, I thought. That's it. Phaidime's murder covered me for a few more minutes, but now that's over. I'm boned.

The Summiri stuff had left me essentially incapable of coherent on-the-spot thinking, but I was able to parse that I basically had three options. Option one: I could lie egregiously and say that it'd all happened because of an accident-- That I was in the bathtub and had fallen over, cut my arm and splattered blood all over my chest, strangled myself on the curtain, then called for help after I fell and almost got a concussion. Obviously this would not go well. Even if by some miracle they swallowed that bullshit, they'd inevitably want to see the inside of the room and find the body, at which point I'd be lucky if I didn't get blamed for Phaidime's death too - unless they decided I was obviously too incompetent to have pulled it off.

Option two: I could confess. This was the easiest option and the one that was most appropriate for Kasua's character. If you disregarded my, uh, perhaps-not-entirely- necessary throat stab, she hadn't even done anything to be ashamed of. Even if the rules of the game didn't consider it so, by any reasonable legal standard it was self-defense. And the evidence supported this. The attack had been in Kasua's room, and there were surely rope marks along my neck, which wasn't exactly a weapon the defensive party would have on hand.

However... the problem was the rules of the game. Victory for the culprit and detective roles were mutually exclusive, so if I straight-up confessed - if I was 'identified' as a culprit - then I'd lose. I could still 'win' if I got the two points for figuring out the identity of Mariya's killer (though with what happened to Phaidime seeming to throw my theory completely out the window, who knew if that was even possible) and played Kasua faithfully, but it wouldn't be a perfect victory.

And like. That didn't really matter. I'd already been told whoever was running this would probably talk to me no matter what. Neferuaten had probably set it up that way from the start-- Going through this rigmarole was very likely a complete waste of time.

However, it felt somehow unfair. That I'd spent a whole day on this only to be denied success by virtue of a stupid technicality. I didn't normally think of myself as competitive, but again, this was my whole thing.

So then, option three: Lie, but in a more subtle way that would influence people's perception away from Kasua being strictly 'guilty' without being easily disprovable. I could say the detective did ambush me, and I did do the chest stab in self-defense, but insist he'd still been alive the last time I saw him. Then, when we found the body, I could claim that I wasn't responsible for the lethal wound on his neck.

I could muddy the waters further both from an in- and out-of-character perspective by playing it like Kasua was in shock. Was she simply remembering wrong, her mind glossing over the frightful truth in the midst of terror and red haze? Or... could it have been the work of the real culprit?

I'm framing this all as a conscious process, but really, all that happened was a nigh-instantaneous default into old habits: To try and have my cake and it, to weave a deception using the tru-- No, never mind. I'm sure you don't even need me to reiterate this shit at this point.

Hildris frowned. "What did happen, Kasua? We never had a chance to find out what was going on in that room."

"I," I said, then paused stiffly for a moment as I thought about all this, "I was attacked." My mind flicked between different ways to tell the story. "It was the detective. I'd left the door unlocked and he'd gone inside."

Summiri's eyebrows rose, but she said nothing.

"Noah?" Tuthal looked baffled. "That imbecile?"

"What happened?" Hildris asked.

"He-- He tried to strangle me with a rope," I explained, pulling down my collar to illustrate before rubbing my eyes in an affect of confusion. "I kicked at him, we ended up in the bathtub somehow. He hit me... it all happened so fast. I don't remember exactly what happened." I shook my head. "I got my sword at some point--"

"A sword," Tuthal echoed. "You brought a sword?"

Why would Kasua have brought a sword, actually? Motivationally it made sense to have a weapon, and it wasn't unheard of for people to still duel in melee in this time period for cultural reasons - firearms had only reasserted their role as the only tool of violence worth talking about at the tail end of the First Resurrection, when it once again became possible manufacture small metal parts and smokeless powder at scale, and the Interluminary Strife obviously set that back a bit - but by any reasonable standard she should have brought a gun, even a shitty gun. It wouldn't just have been more effective, but easier to hide, to slip under her skirt.

There hadn't been anything about this in the guide. Was I supposed to have just spotted it in the luggage and invented some reason, maybe involving specialized knowledge of era-appropriate Rhunbardic firearms law and upper-class customs? Gods.

"I've never trained to fire a gun," I handwaved. "And I wanted something to defend myself, in case I... In case asking questions about my mother..."

Hildris continued to look confused, but Tuthal's gaze flickered with understanding, and he made a dismissive gesture at her as if to say 'later' when she opened her mouth to question me. (These two REALLY seemed to be getting along better.)

"Anyway, I think I stabbed him in the chest... I don't know if it was anywhere vital, I just lashed out blindly. And I hit his head." I made my voice crack a little bit, probably accidentally overdoing it in the process. "The last I saw of him, he was... I think he was unconscious, but he was still breathing."

"Why didn't you say something sooner?" Tuthal asked sternly.

"Because this happened right after it was over, and you all left," I reminded him. "I didn't-- I didn't know how to bring it up."

"God. No wonder you've been acting odd." He clicked his tongue. "Why would he attack you? The man was clearly deranged, but he didn't come across as psychopathic."

"You said he's still alive?" Eirene questioned suspiciously. Why was she a better detective than the actual detective?

"I... he was when I was last there, but I don't know," I said. "It all happened so fast, and everyone was shouting, and my head was hit too, and I..." I traced the blood that'd spilled down the side of Kasua's scalp. "It's got to have been a quarter of an hour by now. He could be dead."

"No," Tuthal muttered to himself as if the conversation wasn't continuing without him. "Of course, of course. He must have done it to try and get the Last Winter. He had to go along with Rastag's scheme like the rest of us when it was his turn, but he must have planned to do whatever it took. He was probably planning to kill me until he saw her going back into her room with the painting. I never trusted that dirty Ysaran fuck."

Standard-fare racist comments aside, it took me a moment to work out what Tuthal was actually saying. I realized: He thought I was claiming the detective had gone in after me, not that he was waiting for me to arrive. This misunderstanding was extremely convenient, and I could make use of it by simply pretending not to remember or have heard him.

"The Last Winter?" Hildris looked confused. "You have it, Kasua?"

I hesitated, but nodded stiffly. "It was still there when I went in, so... I took it."

"She's said she's going to hand it over to me," Tuthal stated unnecessarily.

Hildris ignored him. "Didn't you see anything... else that you felt you ought to take, in there? Did you look at all the other items available?"

So she knew. Tuthal must have told her, then.

I didn't see any point in playing dumb about this part. "I know what you're talking about, but I think what was there for me was a little different than it was for the rest of you," I told her. "It was photos of what I think were the moments leading up to my mother's... death."

Her eyes widened slightly. "You mean..."

"When I realized the fact they were there at all meant that whoever put them on the wall had to be complicit," I continued, "I decided it would be smarter to take the painting as... well, as leverage, basically. I thought that Rastag was still alive. I was sure that..." I glanced towards the horse. "Well, I feel that I don't understand anything now, but that was my thinking."

"You really are a smart girl," Tuthal commented, though the tone made this sound more like envy than praise. "The only one of us the bastard didn't manage to play like a setar."

"Why didn't you tell me about this, Tuth?" Hildris hissed. "You must have seen those photographs."

He shrugged. "What would it have done? We had other concerns." He looked towards Summiri. "Anyway, if the bastard really did kill her, or at least was part of it, his little 'doppelganger' over there ought to be able to tell us everything."

Summiri was about to say something in reply, but Bahram cut her off, shaken from his reverie as a result of this conversational turn. He spoke stiltedly. "What are you all talking about? What was in the carriage? Why are you all acting like Rastag had something to do with... with..."

Tuthal balked. "You don't know? You ran the drawing and he didn't even tell you--"

"Enough!" Eirene yelled. "I said we have to get going. I didn't expect just asking that would drag things out for this long." She pointed her gun at me. "You! Stand in front. You're going to stay right where I can see you until we can confirm your story firsthand."

"Okay," I said automatically, putting my hands up. Why do I feel like there's a good chance this lady will end up shooting me no matter what I do?

"The rest of you, get up. You can walk and talk if you want to debate the facts."

That was clearly that. Bahram and Hildris, who were still down on their knees, quickly rose, and our group moved in the direction of the front of the train.

I took a breath. Even if it didn't seem that important compared to the scope of the bonkers shit going on right now, Kasua still definitely wouldn't pass up an opportunity to learn more about what had happened to her mother, even from a - to put it lightly - somewhat unreliable source.

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"What were you going to say, Summiri?" I asked as we walked.

I couldn't see her face because of how Eirene had positioned me at the front of the group, but I heard her let out a thoughtful hum. "I was going to say that I didn't kill Mariya. You have the wrong impression."

Tuthal snorted. "As if he'd have fucking told you, even as part of his deranged grooming plot."

"The human psyche is rather like a quilt, Tuthal," Summiri told him, sounding fatigued. "One's identity isn't something you can construct and deconstruct out of little blocks like it's a children's toy. It's interlinked. Interdependent. If you tear part of it out, the entire thing will slowly begin to unravel by virtue of its own contradictions."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm trying to say that I couldn't have just 'not told her'. The experiment wouldn't have worked. I wouldn't have a cohesive sense of internal self." She sighed. "But yes, I didn't kill her. My god, she was one of my closest friends. Why on earth would I ever think to do such a thing?" She shook her head. "No. The photographs, which I took in secret, confirmed the identity of a different culprit, one I was unable to reveal in my previous life due to evidence being held against me regarding another matter. I wasn't even supposed to be aware of the fact she would be meeting someone there on that night, and I'd originally never expected it to end the way it did. If I had, I would certainly have done more than set up a mechanical camera."

"You mean, the photos were taken automatically," I inferred.

"That's correct. I'm afraid I'm not much for photographic engineering, but apparently there's a method you can use to have them respond automatically upon changes in the light."

I glanced over my shoulder, squinting. "That seems very convenient. So who was the culprit?"

She paused-- I caught a pensive look on her face. "I'll tell you in a few minutes. There's something I want to confirm first."

Tuthal cut back in before I could object, angered. "Wait, so you knew about Rastag's fucking trick?"

"You're really going to have to acknowledge the basic concepts at work here at some point, Tuth," Summiri replied. "Of course I know about it. It's my plan."

"That's bullshit!" He exclaimed. "There was an item for you in there too, I saw it! The 'shame of the student', or whatever the plate said." He crossed his arms. "Bahram's right, you're making this all up for the sake of some insipid play!"

"A simple misdirect," she dismissed. "Obviously it wasn't originally my plan to reveal my true identity to you out of nowhere, so I needed some kind of item in play to maintain the illusion that we were on equal footing until the time was right. My original intent was for this whole affair to be something of a-- Well, let's say a test of character. You'd come here thinking you were getting something for free, be reminded of some of the weight I have been burdening on your behalf over all these years and forced to confront some of the matters you'd have rather kept buried, and then I would ultimately determine your true inheritance based on how you faced those trials."

"God, it really is uncanny how much of a colossal prick you are," Tuthal said scornfully. "You're at least channeling him on a spiritual level."

Summiri rolled her eyes.

"What makes you think you have the right to pull this shit, eh?" He continued. "We're supposed to be 'your' fucking friends! And you waste our time dragging us to the middle of bumfuck nowhere to threaten us, to test us? Maybe I ought to test you by tying you to the front of your gilded shittrain and seeing if you can outrun it once we've fired up the engine again."

"That doesn't even make sense-- Why would it be a test if I died when the train went too fast? That would just show I was a competent engineer."

"Stop," Eirene commanded. We'd arrived at the edge of the carriage now, and she moved to stand at a right angle to the rest of us next to the gap through which one could descend into the engine carriage, such that she could clearly see both our entire group and the area below at once. "Like I said, you're going to go down one at a time, and stay right at the bottom until we're all together again." She pointed the gun. "I'll shoot if anyone does anything funny. Men first, move fast."

We descended, though not particularly fast, as when anyone moved at a tempo beyond 'measuredly deliberate' the chef yelled at them. I was made to go last - subject to extra scrutiny - after which Eirene leapt down in one bound. The opening was pretty narrow, so I wasn't even sure this tactic would have helped in the way she'd wanted if anyone had actually tried to run.

Once I got down, it became clear that Gaizarik and his assistant were gone. The others were already talking about it.

"The door inside was open before," Hildris pointed out. "Maybe they went to see to something regarding the engine."

Or someone closed it to give that impression, I thought.

"Someone go open it," Eirene ordered.

When no one else moved for a few moments, Summiri did. She rattled the handle. "It's locked."

Tuthal, skeptical, stepped forward and tried it himself, but it did indeed appear to be shut tight. He grunted.

Eirene narrowed her eyes. "Try knocking."

Summiri rattled her knuckles on the metal. "Are you two in there?"

"Uhhhh." I recognized this noise of teenage indecision as belonging to the boy, Wiliya. "Yeh. Sorry, we're in here. Had to check the engine since we stopped it real sudden."

"I see," Summiri said, with a glance back towards Eirene and the rest of us. "We just finished investigating the body and are heading to check something else in the bedrooms. We're trying to get everyone back in one place. Why have you locked the door?"

" 's, uh." A moment of silence. "Just in case the culprit was still about while you lot were gone."

This was so suspicious that even Tuthal noticed. "There's something in that little weasel's tone. He's up to something in there."

"Ask for Gaizarik to speak," Eirene commanded.

Summiri raised her voice slightly. "Gaizarik, are you there too?"

There was what sounded like a very mild shuffling sound, but eventually the older man's voice came as well. "...yes, mistress. I am here."

Tuthal twitched, then narrowed his eyes.

"Open the door for a moment, if you would? We just want to check that nothing is untoward."

Footsteps approached, and the lock clicked. The door half-opened, and Wiliya poked his head out, accompanied by a puft of thin smoke. "Er, 'ullo-- Ahh." His eyes widened, but his demeanor was too sedate to allow for a stronger reaction.

Eirene was pointing the gun at him. "Come out, both of you. We're moving as a group to minimize the risks."

"Uhhh, but I gotta deal with the engine. It's still bein' particular. " The boy scratched his head. "And the old man's in the bog."

"He's what?"

"I apologize, but I am presently in the lavatory," Gaizarik's voice said from behind a second door on the left. He delivered the phrase with as much dignity as I would consider humanly possible, which is to say not very much.

"Putanas yos," Eirene cursed in Inotian. She grimaced. "Lock the door, do not leave under any circumstances. If you're not here when we return, I will assume you're working with the culprit. Understand?"

Wiliya looked baffled. "W-Why are you in charge--"

"Do you understand."

"Er." He cleared his throat. "Yeh."

"We'll be back very shortly, Gaizarik," Summiri. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Of course, mistress."

The door was shut. The lock clicked back into place.

"Move," Eirene commanded again, flicking the pistol towards the door.

Now that we were no longer in an open area where I could conceivably make a run for it, the rule about me taking the lead seemed implicitly relaxed, and it was Hildris who opened the door to the inter-carriage area. "I have to say, this is rather increasingly feeling less like a group effort and more like a hostage situation."

Eirene grabbed the door as soon as it opened, holding it such. "You'll thank me when we're all still alive in 12 hours."

Tuthal was not even on the same plane of existence as this conversation. "Mistress! He called you mistress!"

"I suppose I probably have left him a bit adrift in terms of titles," Summiri mused as she slipped through the door. "I'm sure it's an uncanny adjustment for him as well. I plan to release him from my service when this is concluded. He's done more than enough over the years, and deserves a decent retirement."

"I can't believe you weren't lying. That you really did set this all up! You insane cunt!"

Bahram was breathing heavily, following along with his whole body slumped like some kind of zombie. His eyes were still wild; I wasn't sure anyone else was paying attention, but it looked like he could lash out again at a moment's notice.

"When you say things like that, Tuth, I really don't know how you can act surprised by the fact I wasn't willing to hand over potentially millions of arda worth of art to you with no questions asked. I understand the situation has become rather bizarre, but it wouldn't kill you to not act like a rabid beast."

"Did you inherit all his assets, too?" he asked. Hildris opened the far door, while Eirene stepped through the rear.

"Obviously. Or at least, whatever wasn't on this train or that went to the Foundation. It would be a little complicated to keep my finger too deep in that pie considering the circumstances, so I'm happy to leave it in the hands of other capable minds for at least a time."

"You fucking asshole!" Tuthal yelled. "Give me back my money!"

"It's not Rastag, Tuthal," Hildris reminded him tiredly.

"No, I don't care! If she's convinced she's him and she has all his shit, then that's close enough." He pointed at Summiri insistently. "You owe me! If not for the business, then through putting me through this bollocks!"

"It's not as if I intended this event to go this way," Summiri told him. "Now that my initial excitement seeing the beast has worn off, it's actually rather frustrating. I had this whole scenario planned out where you'd all be forced to speak your true feelings about what befell Nikkala--"

"--oh, of course it's about that, you can never let anything go in a thousand damn years--"

"--and about your regrets regarding me, and only then would I finally reveal myself to you. And if you'd proved true, I would have shared everything. Not just the money, but the future! Immortality!"

"Oh, so I'd get my own little girl to--" I'll omit the turn of phrase Tuthal used here, but it rhymed with 'brined grape' and made me squirm in palpable discomfort for a few moments. "How bloody generous of you."

"In any regard," Summiri digressed, somehow managing to come across as the reasonable party despite the accusations being basically true assuming there wouldn't be another twist, "You invested in the infrastructure, then pulled out before we were able to attract more capital, sending confidence into the entire venture in the sewer. You signed documents to the effect that your payout in the event of withdrawal would be proportional to the value of the business. I lost almost as much money as you did because you weren't willing to wait."

"You lied to me! You told me we'd be seeing the value turn within the first five years!"

"I said we would probably see it turn within the five years." She shook her head. "This is what I mean when I say you have a child's understanding of business."

"My family name is on the verge of ruin because of you!" The last of us passed through the second door, the group heading into the rest carriage.

"That's not my responsibility."

"I could kill you, you know. I'm not joking. There are no witnesses. And even if there were, the world wouldn't condemn me for putting down some grotesque body-stealing parasite."

"...I want to clear something up," I said, interrupting this circular dialogue that was also fixated on the uncomfortable Summiri issue. "Exactly how much of what's happened are you claiming to have planned? You said you didn't expect Phaidime to be there."

"No, that's true," she replied, looking pensive. "I arranged all this a couple of decades ago in the event of my death, but there have been some changes of plans very recently. That woman was the element I immediately identified was wrong-- I'd never involve my real sister - well, former sister, I suppose - in something like this. Gaizarik will be able to clear that up. Though of course the appearance of the Uqartul is a true black swan event."

I peered at her. "That's all?"

She paused for a moment. "...there's one other thing," she answered. "But again. Let's wait a minute. I wish to confirm a certain matter."

We arrived at the door to my room, the cat having escaped at some point.

"That took so long there's a good chance he's dead or escaped already," Eirene said. "Assuming any of this is true, that is. But if he's still alive, we'll need to treat him, so I need you to be ready." She looked to Bahram.

He barely even nodded. His eyes were completely glazed over now.

"Could he somehow be the culprit of all of this?" Hildris speculated. "Set up whatever happened, then moved here to try and kill Kasua?"

"No, someone would have to have been up on the roof to cause the dents, even if the horse and body were planted at an earlier point," Eirene countered. "...I say that, but I won't rule anything out. So again, be ready." She inclined her head towards me. "Open it."

Hesitantly, I stepped forward to do as she asked. Suddenly this whole plan felt a lot stupider than when I'd conceived it less than five minutes ago. When they saw the gaping wound in his throat and the bloody sword lying nearby on the ground, I wouldn't be able to sell it as 'oh, someone else must have shown up and done this', it'd be clear as day. Why did so many things feel so ambiguous and abstractable right up until they were staring you in the face?

I slid open the door.

I blinked.

There was no body. The room was clean. My luggage was upright and in the correct position. Even the Last Winter was there, unbloodied.

There was a feeling in my brain that reminded me of the froth that spills out of a fizzy drink when you've shaken it up a little too much. My mouth opened slightly.

"So there you all are," a voice called out from the other side of the hall. I looked.

Of course, despite the fact this would be completely impossible, it appeared to be the detective.