A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan, #2)

by Robert Jackson Bennett

Now—step fast. We are in a dangerous area. I don’t want anyone seeing your very pretty face, assuming you’re a rich man who paid for the shaping of it, and knifing you for your talints.” “I did not pay for my face,” I said, nettled, but Malo was already moving.

Finally she leaned close, her green-stained eyes shining, and she said something in Pithian and cackled. “Ahh. What was that?” I asked, smiling. A silver-haired medikker nearby rolled his eyes and said, “She said your face is so pretty, but she is worried it is like a small horse.” “What? She said what now?” “It is a local expression, and a depraved one at that—she means, she is worried she might crush it while riding it.”

We shall discard this possibility,” she said with a sniff, “as it is tremendously stupid.

“Yes,” he said. “The Shroud is one organism, Kol, one being. It is one we have created. There is no other like it in this world. We had to make it so, to stem back the bloods of the leviathans.” “Why didn’t you tell us this, sir?” I asked. “I believe I did,” he said, bemused. “I told you the Shroud was based upon the tissues of a leviathan. But perhaps I did not make the ramifications of this clear.”