Ykka shakes her head and rises. “Well, at least you haven’t destroyed the rusting comm already. Tell me what you’ve figured out, then.”
Tonkee turns to eye her warily. “Those panels along the wall activate, and regulate, the water pumps and air circulation systems and cooling processes. But you knew that already.”
“Yes. Since we’re not dead.” Ykka dusts off her hands from where she touched the floor, sidling toward Tonkee in a way that is somehow simultaneously thoughtful and subtly menacing. She’s not as big as most Sanzed women—a good foot shorter than Hjarka. Her dangerousness is not as obvious as it is with others, but you sense the slow readying of her orogeny now. She was fully prepared to smash or ice her way into this place. The Strongbacks shift and edge a little closer, too, reinforcing her unspoken threat.
“What I want to know,” she continues, “is how you knew that.” She stops, facing Tonkee. “We figured it out, in those early days, through trial and error. Touch one thing and it gets cooler, touch another and the communal pool water gets hotter. But nothing’s changed in the past week.”
Tonkee sighs a little. “I’ve learned how to decipher some of the symbols over the years. Spend enough time in these kinds of ruins and you see the same things repeated over and over.”
Ykka considers this, then nods toward the warning text around the plinth rim. “What’s that say?”
“No idea. I said decipher, not read. Symbols, not language.” Tonkee walks over to one of the wall panels and points to a prominent design in its top right corner. It’s nothing intuitive: something green and arrow-like but squiggly, sort of, pointed downward. “I see that one wherever there were water gardens. I think it’s about the quality and intensity of the light that the gardens get.” She eyes Ykka. “Actually, I know it’s about the light the gardens get.”
Ykka lifts her chin a little, just enough that you know Tonkee has guessed right. “So this place is no different from other ruins you’ve seen? The others had crystals in them, like this?”
“No. I’ve never seen anything like Castrima before. Except—” She glances at you, once and away. “Well. Not exactly like Castrima.”
“That thing in the Fulcrum wasn’t anything like this,” you blurt. It’s been more than twenty years, but you haven’t forgotten a detail about the place. That was a pit, and Castrima is a rock with a hole in it. If both were made by the same kinds of people, to do similar things, there’s no evidence of that anywhere.
“It was, actually.” Tonkee comes back to the plinth and waves up the warning. This time she points at a symbol within the glowing red text: a solid black circle surrounded by a white octagon. You don’t know how you missed it before; it stands out from the red.
“I saw that mark in the Fulcrum, painted onto some of the light panels. You were too busy staring into the pit; I don’t think you saw. But I’ve been in maybe half a dozen obelisk-builder sites since, and that mark is always near something dangerous.” She’s watching you intently. “I find dead people near it sometimes.”
Inadvertently you think of Guardian Timay. Not found dead, but dead nevertheless, and you almost joined her that day. Then you remember a moment in the room without doors, near the edge of the yawning pit. You remember small needlelike protrusions from the walls of the pit… exactly like these bits of iron.
“The socket,” you murmur. That was what the Guardian called it. “A contaminant.” A prickle dances across the nape of your neck. Tonkee looks sharply at you.
“‘Something dangerous’ can mean any rusting thing,” says Hjarka, annoyed, as you stand there staring at the bits of rust.
“No, in this case it means a specific rusting thing.” Tonkee glares Hjarka down, which is impressive in itself. “It was the mark of their enemy.”
Fuck, you realize. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“What?” asks Ykka. “What in the Evil Earth are you talking about?”
“Their enemy.” Tonkee leans against the edge of the plinth—carefully, you note, but emphatically. “They were at war, don’t you understand? Toward the end, just before their civilization vanished into the dust. All their ruins, anything that’s left from that time, are defensive, survival-oriented. Like the comms of today—except they had a lot more than stone walls to help protect them. Things like giant rusting underground geodes. They hid in those places, and studied their enemy, and maybe built weapons to fight back.” She pivots and points up, at the upper half of the plinth crystal. It flickers just as she does so, obelisk-like.
“No,” you say automatically. Everyone turns to look at you, and you twitch. “I mean…” Shit. But you’ve said it now. “The obelisks aren’t…” You don’t know how to say it without telling the whole damned story, and you’re reluctant to do that. You’re not sure why. Maybe for the same reason that Antimony said, when Alabaster started to tell you: They aren’t ready. Now you need to finish in a way that won’t invite further comment. “I don’t think they’re defensive, or any sort of… weapon.”
Tonkee says nothing for a long moment. “What are they, then?”
“I don’t know.” It’s not a lie. You don’t know for sure. “A tool, maybe. Dangerous if misused, but not meant to kill.”
Tonkee seems to brace herself. “I know what happened to Allia, Essun.”
It’s an unexpected blow, and it floors you emotionally. Fortunately, you’ve spent your life training to deflect your reactions to unexpected blows in safe ways. You say, “Obelisks aren’t made to do that. That was an accident.”
“How do you—”
“Because I was connected to the rusting thing when it went into burndown!” You snap this so sharply that your voice echoes in the room and startles you into realizing how angry you are. One of the Strongbacks inhales and something in her gaze shifts and all at once you are reminded of the Strongbacks at Tirimo, who looked at you the same way when Rask asked them to let you go through the gate. Even Ykka’s watching you in a way that wordlessly says, You’re scaring the locals, calm the rust down. So you take a deep breath and fall silent.
(It is only later that you will recall the word you said during this conversation. Burndown. You will wonder why you said it, what it means, and you will have no answer.)
Tonkee lets out a deep breath, carefully, and this seems to speak for the room. “It’s possible I’ve made some wrong assumptions,” she says.
Ykka rubs a hand over her hair. It makes her head look incongruously small for a moment until it floofs back up. “All right. We already know Castrima was used as a comm before. Probably several times. If you’d asked me, instead of coming in here and acting like a rusting child, I could have told you that. I would have told you everything I knew, because I want to understand this place just as much as you do—”
Tonkee utters a single braying laugh. “None of you are smart enough for that.”
“—but by pulling this shit, you’ve made me mistrust you. I don’t let people I don’t trust do things that can hurt the people I love. So I want you out of here for good.”