Administrator Of A Broken World

"Barni. Stay."

The words came from beneath the empty bench.

No one answered.

Ivara’s hand snapped across her own mouth. Then she pointed at each of them, one by one, and drew a hard line through the air.

No voices.

Barni lowered his body. A sound gathered in his chest, too low to become a growl.

The copied voice moved.

"Barni. Stay."

This time it came from the left passage.

A breath later, Mataon heard himself from the right.

"Come here."

The tone was softer than anything he had said since entering the hill.

Barni’s claws pressed into the dust. He did not move.

Something hot tightened behind Mataon’s ribs. The creature had not merely copied words. It had selected the ones meant for Barni.

"Does identity theft apply to voices?" he asked silently.

Zahr replied at once. "Only if the stolen voice is used for profit."

"So attempted pet theft is unregulated?"

"Historically neglected."

"It has stolen the shape of your sound," Almina said. "Not the part Barni trusts."

Mataon paused.

That had almost sounded kind.

"Was that reassurance?"

"It was a correction."

Zahr made a thoughtful noise. "A very gentle correction."

"Continue," Almina said, "and I will demonstrate a less gentle one."

Mataon crouched beside the bench.

He had checked the space beneath it. The stone floor was solid. The wall behind it was not.

A line of tiny holes ran beneath the seat, each no wider than a grain of barley. They had been drilled at an angle, hidden by dust and old wax.

Edrin saw them and went still.

He placed two fingers near one hole, then pointed toward the passages. After that, he mimed a guard speaking into the wall.

Whisper channels.

The holding chamber had been built so orders could travel without opening a door.

Mataon held the hooded lamp closer. A thin grey film covered the nearest hole from the other side. It tightened when he breathed near it.

Prrt.

The film copied the vibration badly, producing a wet little puff.

"Distinguished enemy," Mataon thought.

Zahr said, "It has already mastered your speeches."

Mataon untied the crude knife from the route cord and brought the stone tip toward the hole.

"Do not put your hand there," Almina said.

"I’m using the knife."

"Your hand is attached to it."

"A temporary design flaw."

The grey film snapped inward.

Shlk!

Something black and narrow shot through the hole. It struck the knife, slid along the stone, and opened Mataon’s palm before vanishing.

Barni lunged and caught the route cord in his teeth. Mataon’s arm stopped before it followed the blade into the wall.

Ivara seized his coat and dragged him away from the bench.

The whole exchange took less than a breath.

Blood ran between his fingers.

"Your hand," Almina said.

"I noticed."

"Then close it."

Mataon curled his fingers around the cut.

Zahr sounded delighted. "She worries."

"I am preserving the only body available to both of us," Almina replied.

"Very romantic," Mataon thought.

Her answer arrived cold and immediate. "Bleed more. I may recover my objectivity."

That was more familiar.

Ivara wrapped his palm with a narrow strip torn from an old inner bandage. Her movements were quick and irritated. When she finished, she tapped the knot, pointed at the wall, then at his eyes.

Look. Do not touch.

Mataon nodded.

Barni released the cord and sat on it.

"Yes," Mataon whispered before remembering the rule.

Four heads turned toward him.

He raised his uninjured hand in apology.

From the right passage, his copied whisper repeated, "Yes."

Ivara’s stare became almost educational.

Mataon drew a small mouth in the dust and crossed it out himself.

Tovan crouched beside the drilled holes. He dusted them with chalk, then tapped the wall once with the flat of his claw.

Tik.

A pulse travelled under the chalk. Three holes breathed out at different times.

The listener was not sitting beneath the bench. It was using the channels from somewhere deeper inside.

Or several listeners were.

Tovan inserted a thin twig into one hole and held it loosely.

The twig bent left.

He tried the next.

It bent right.

Two routes carried the same chamber’s sound.

Edrin took the chalk. On the floor, he drew the room as a square, then two lines leaving it. Above the left line he marked four short cuts. Above the right, he drew a hooked symbol and rubbed one side of it with his thumb.

Ivara pointed at the four cuts.

Edrin nodded. Prisoner transfer.

She pointed at the hook.

His mouth tightened. He dragged one finger across his throat, then pointed down.

A route used for bodies, waste, or people not expected to return.

The right passage immediately produced a weak cough.

Edrin’s cough.

The exact one he had made at the outer gate.

No one looked right.

Ivara drew three small dots on the back of her hand. She pressed the same hand against Tovan’s shoulder three times.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Tovan repeated it on Edrin. Edrin on Mataon. Mataon crouched and tapped Barni’s shoulder.

Three touches. A real instruction required contact.

Zahr said, "A law I support."

"You support every law after someone else invents it."

"I preserve my energy for interpretation."

Almina said, "He means avoiding work."

"Your translation is hostile."

"It is accurate."

Mataon almost smiled. The cut in his palm pulled the expression short.

They entered the left passage in a single line: Tovan, Ivara, Edrin, Mataon, Barni. No one spoke. Every few steps, the copied voices changed position.

Ivara’s breath came from behind them.

Tovan’s claw scratched ahead.

Mataon heard his own footsteps running through the right wall while his real feet remained still.

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

The passage narrowed around a stone pillar. Above it, something pale folded away from the lamp.

Mataon caught only pieces: a stretched membrane, one long hooked joint, and a dark eye reflecting yellow light before the shape withdrew into a slit too small for a human shoulder.

Tovan threw his knife.

Ktak!

The blade struck stone.

A burst of stolen sounds exploded through the tunnels—Barni’s bark, Ivara’s inhale, Mataon’s laugh, the gate’s five knocks—all stacked together until direction became meaningless.

The hooked shape returned with them.

It unfolded from a crack above Tovan, not as a whole body but as a strip of dark membrane stretched between two jointed fingers. The edge snapped toward his ear.

Ivara shoved him down.

Fwap!

The membrane struck the wall and clung there. Tiny ridges along its underside opened and closed, each one producing a different stolen sound.

"Come here."

Cough.

Tik. Tik.

Mataon threw the route cord around the nearest joint and pulled. The cut in his palm opened under the knot. Pain flashed up his wrist, but the membrane peeled away from the crack.

For one instant, something on the other side pulled back.

Not strong enough to drag him. Strong enough to learn from the attempt.

Tovan drove his recovered knife into the membrane’s shadow rather than the limb itself. Ivara cut the cord free before Mataon could be pulled toward the wall.

The hooked fingers vanished.

A wet clicking sound retreated through the stone.

Krrt... krrt... krrt...

No blood remained. Only a clear smear that made the chalk dust clump.

Mataon’s temporary foot wrap shifted when he stepped back.

"Shorter step with the left foot," Almina said.

He corrected before asking, "You’ve been watching how I walk?"

"I have been watching you fail to walk quietly."

Zahr said, "She has been watching."

Almina’s answer was so flat it nearly became a threat. "Someone must."

Mataon decided that surviving the tunnel was safer than examining that sentence.

Edrin flinched toward the right wall.

Mataon caught his sleeve and tapped his shoulder three times.

Real.

Edrin steadied.

At the base of the pillar, Barni scratched once. A blue-grey thread had been tied around a rusted nail, hidden beneath mineral crust.

The hooded prisoner’s cloth.

Ivara touched it, then pointed left.

Edrin checked the transfer marks again. Four cuts. Fresh scrape. Left.

A deep metal note sounded somewhere inside the hill.

Gong.

Dust fell from the ceiling.

Edrin pulled out the transfer token. A red line along its edge had begun shrinking.

He drew a gate in the dust and lowered his hand.

The transfer route was closing.

From the right tunnel, Mataon’s voice called clearly, "Four prisoners. This way."

Barni bared his teeth at it.

Then five knocks came from the left.

Tok.

Tok.

Tok.

Tok.

The fifth was weak enough to be mistaken for falling stone.

Tok.

Ivara pointed left. Tovan pointed right, toward the voice. Edrin stared at the dying red line.

Mataon raised his hand to choose.

A human scream tore through the right passage.

It stopped halfway through.