This morning had been different. No captain, Mirrell on the bridge.
Minox considered all this for a moment, and then approached the door with the crashed silverwagon in it. “This is Inspector Minox Welling of the Grand Inspection Unit. Who is claiming authority for the malefactors here?”
“I’m the leader, champ,” a voice said from the other side of the door. “What can I do for you, Mister Welling?”
“An expeditious surrender would be ideal, sir,” Minox said. “I insist on knowing the status of your hostages.”
“They’re all fine, including your Inspector Rainey,” the man said. “So what are you going to do, champ?”
Minox checked his crossbow—loaded with blunt tips. Painful and incapacitating in most cases, but usually not fatal. “Corrie,” he called to his sister. “You and Iorrett, come here.”
She came over with Sergeant Iorrett. Strictly speaking, they were the same rank, but she wasn’t even twenty years old. Iorrett was over thirty, and she deferred to him entirely in her body language. At least she did right now. Typically, Corrie yielded to no one, especially Iorrett.
“You got a plan, specs?” Iorrett asked.
Also atypical. Iorrett was normally aggressive, even insubordinate to Minox. He would be putting forth a plan of action. Demanding it, even.
And they were geared for full action, the special response their squad was being trained for. Except their crossbows also had blunt tips loaded.
“I do,” Minox said plainly, though it wasn’t entirely true. He had a deduction, and was going to act as if his supposition was true. “I need you to place some of your people at either end of that alley to watch that back door. The rest will be with me for a frontal assault.”
“A what?” Corrie asked, looking at him for the first time.
“If it comes to that,” Minox said, though he had already played out in his head the most likely way this situation would go. “But put the plain footpatrolmen on crowd control. This will be best handled by your people.”
“What’s the plan?” Iorrett asked.
“The plan is to follow my lead,” Minox said. “I assume this situation is the sort of thing you’ve been training for over the past two months, yes?”
“Yes, sir—” Iorrett started.
“Then get your people in position. On my signal, you will need to move in fast to neutralize any threats to civilians expediently. Can I trust you to do that, Sergeant, or do I need other officers here?”
“Yes, sir, we can do that,” Iorrett said sharply. He barked out a few orders to his people, and they positioned themselves at the alley and around the wagon.
Minox went back over to the door of the teashop. “Sir, can you hear me?”
“Ayuh, specs. You got something to say?”
“I do. You have to the count of ten to release your hostages and come out peacefully.”
“Or?”
“There is no or. In a few moments you will be ironed and arrested. Right now you have the opportunity to minimize your own discomfort.”
“I think you ought to negotiate a bit better than that,” the leader said.
“Ten,” Minox said. He kept counting as the man sputtered on.
“Now, look, specs. We’re prepared to offer you one of these folks, but you have to—”
“Three,” Minox said, having counted to that.
“But we should—”
“Two—”
“I don’t think—”
Minox pulled in as much magic energy as he could easily muster, channeling it through his altered hand.
“One.”
“Wait—”
Minox didn’t wait. He nodded at Iorrett, and with a massive push of the energy—so strong it caused his hand to burst into blue flame—he yanked the silverwagon out of the doorway, exposing the teashop within. Three men with knives and crossbows were standing in the teashop, with Inspectors Mirrell and Rainey kneeling on the floor in front of them. Four other civilians were off to one side.
“Go,” he said to Corrie and Iorrett, which was about all he could manage. He hadn’t realized how much moving that wagon would take out of him.
Iorrett and Corrie, in unison with the rest of their squad, leaped forward with their shields up and crossbows trained.
“Drop your weapons and raise your hands up,” Iorrett said. “This is your only warning.”
All three robbers moved in an instant, but not to drop their weapons. The two with knives went at Mirrell and Rainey, and the third—the one with the crossbow—snapped up his aim and shot at one of the civilians.
Minox didn’t think—the magic surged out of him toward the bolt flying at the woman’s chest. In an instant, the bolt had turned to ash. He had done that out of instinct, and as a result, he felt as weak as a kitten. Foolish on his part, since it was unnecessary.
He didn’t even glance over at Mirrell and Rainey. “I trust you two are all right.”
“We wouldn’t have been,” Mirrell said. He was still kneeling on the ground, the “robber” behind him holding the knife against his throat. But the two of them were now completely relaxed. Mirrell looked rather annoyed.
“In a real crisis situation, possibly no,” Minox said. “But this clearly was not one.”
“You didn’t know—” Mirrell started.
“I did,” Minox said. “I had deduced rather quickly that this scenario was some sort of exercise or test, rather than an actual hostage situation.” He glanced around at the robbers, the civilians, and the members of Iorrett’s squad. “And clearly the focus of this test was me.”
“No,” Mirrell said quickly as he got to his feet. “It was a training exercise for the squad to . . .”
“Sewage, Inspector,” Minox said. He rarely employed vulgarity, but it fit in the moment. “The squad, I noticed, had crossbows loaded with cloth-wrapped blunt tip quarrels. Minimal injury in case they had to fire. The path the silverwagon supposedly took from the bridge to crash into this teashop was unlikely, and certainly the driver would not have had the chance to trigger the horse release. Third, you had no reason to be in this area, and Inspector Rainey and I had no reason to be specifically called, unless this test was for me.”
“It could be—”
Minox shook his head. “You couldn’t let Inspector Rainey know until we were already engaged, but you made a point of removing her from the scenario as quickly as possible, to force me into a command position.”
“And this was sewage,” Rainey said, now brushing off her slacks. “I almost took Mirrell’s eye out when they grabbed me. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Mirrell said.
“Wasn’t apologizing to you,” Rainey said. “I had no idea about this, Welling.”
“No apology needed.” He looked over at Corrie. “Nor from you. You were clearly aware, but was ordered not to say anything. Everything about your nature this morning told me you were harboring a secret.”
“Captain’s orders,” she mumbled.
“Captain?” Minox called out. “I suppose you can come out from wherever you’re watching.”
Mirrell pointed over to an office building on the opposite corner. “He’s up there with Kellman. They’ll be down in a bit.”
The lead robber came over to the three of them, now all smiles. He was a young man with an almost impossibly pretty face. “This was fun,” he said. “If you need to do this sort of thing again, the Birch Street Players are at your disposal.”
“Birch Street?” Rainey asked. “Where is that?”
“Out in Seleth,” Mirrell said.
“That was my idea.” Inspector Kellman came over from the office building. “I figured we needed folk that you two wouldn’t recognize from your own stages.”
“Westtown,” the actor said, now using a West Maradaine accent very simil
ar to Inspector Kellman’s. “I imagine you don’t get out there much.”
“No,” Rainey said. “But next time don’t pick a character and dialogue from plays. Even obscure ones.”
“No one’s seen Hebbler’s Heartaches.”
“All the Gestin plays have had a resurgence on the north side,” Rainey said, nodding her head toward the bridge.
Minox shook his head, still looking for the captain to emerge. “This all seems to be an unwieldy and expensive endeavor simply to test my . . . what were you even testing?”
“Your fitness, Mister Welling.”
This came from the woman Minox had saved from the crossbow shot—though surely that whole thing was some form of stagecraft to make him think she was in danger. She was a primly dressed woman, in a high-collared dress and her dark hair up in a tied bun, under a small hat. She approached and offered a gloved hand to him.
“Kendra Morad. Special advocate and advisor from the offices of the Archduke of Sauriya.”
“Miss Morad,” Minox said, taking the hand. “I presume you are here for a purpose connected to the Inquiry I am under.”
“You presume correctly, Mister Welling. I’m in charge of the Inquiry board.”
“And how are your findings?”
“Incomplete, Mister Welling. Intriguing, but incomplete.”
“Sloppy, that is what they are!” This came from a flamboyantly dressed man—a yellow-and-green suit and several rings on each finger. Minox had met this man once before, that he was certain, but he couldn’t recall the circumstances. He chose, therefore, to address the captain, who was walking a few paces behind him. Captain Brace Cinellan had his head down, as if his years of service to the Constabulary were weighing particularly heavily on him today. He looked harried, exhausted.
“Captain,” Minox said. “I trust I performed adequately, given that I saw through the ruse and acted accordingly. I would not have risked Inspectors Mirrell and Rainey in any situation I believed was legitimate. And I presumed correctly.”
“I understand, Welling,” the captain said. If Minox had to guess, the captain was embarrassed by this whole test. He had likely been forced to impose it on Minox. “This is—”
“Quentin Olivant,” the flamboyantly dressed man said with some disdain. “Lawyer and member of the Lord Preston’s Circle.”
“That’s the educationally focused one,” Minox said. He had been reading up on the larger circles of late.
“Yes, you met one of our prominent members a few weeks ago. Professor Gollic Alimen?”
The magic professor on campus, who had worked himself into a frenzy just from looking at Minox.
“And he contacted you?” Minox asked.
“I became aware that your service in the Constabulary, as an Uncircled mage, was growing increasingly troubling. And that you were under Inquiry. It would be remiss to not step in and assist in the proceedings.”
“Which are still mine, Mister Olivant,” Miss Morad said. “And we will proceed as I see fit.”
“As you wish, Miss Morad,” Olivant said. “I can tell you what I observed. Messy, uncontrolled magic. The equivalent of using a bonfire to heat your tea.”
“Your opinion means very little to me, Mister Olivant,” Minox said.
“But not to me, Inspector,” Miss Morad said.
“Of course, Miss Morad,” Minox said. He glanced about at the assembled group around him. “Surely the middle of a public square is not the place to discuss this.”
“No,” Captain Cinellan said. “This whole exercise was absurd.” He glared at both Olivant and Morad. “I should never have consented to it.”
“I thought it important to observe the choices and tactics Inspector Welling makes under pressure.”
That made sense. “Mirroring the events in the hospital ward, yes.” Looking at his sister, he added, “I’m surprised they didn’t make you one of the hostages.”
“I told them this was rutting sewage and I didn’t want any part of it.”
“It was a good training exercise for our squad,” Iorrett said.
“Shut your rut hole before I sew it,” Corrie said, gripping her handstick.
Captain Cinellan stepped up, putting his hand on top of Corrie’s. “As Minox said, let’s take it off the street.”
“Indeed,” Rainey added. “We have work to do.”
Whistle calls of all sorts pierced the air, coming from the other side of the bridge. Calls came for crowd control, Yellowshields, bodywagons—all blended together. Even with the river between them, it was such a cacophony, it was impossible to ignore.
“Should we be responding?” Kellman asked.
“It’s north side,” Cinellan said. “That ain’t our problem.”
“I thought the whole city was our problem,” Rainey said.
“Only when we’re asked.”
Minox wondered how much of that was Cinellan’s own tribalism, his desire to focus on his own neighborhood, and how much was weariness from the politics he now faced as captain of the GIU.
Amid the crowd and confusion of The Lower Bridge and the surrounding square—a situation only made more congested by their continued presence—Minox noticed a young woman racing down the bridge. She stood out for several reasons—one was her obvious skill. She was dodging her way around people, bounding up on the railing to get past them, anything she could do to cross the bridge at best speed.
The other was the uniform she was wearing, one Minox had rarely seen anyone wear in Maradaine: that of the Tarian Order.
The Tarians were an ancient order, an entrenched part of Druth history from a time before there was Constabulary, established army, or anything resembling standards for protecting the common civilianry from evil and lawlessness. He remembered that when he was a child he’d listen to his Uncle Terrent tell stories of Old Druthal or the Shattered Centuries, where the heroes were from one of the Twelve Elite Orders of old. These people were the predecessors of law enforcement in Druthal, and for many people, the only source of justice.
Minox had always held them in high regard, from the shield-bearing Tarians to the Vanidian woodsmen to the Braighian pikemasters.
Most of those Orders had disbanded or evolved into something new. The Yellowshields—like his cousin Ferah—came from the Ascepian Order, and still bore the same emblem on their coats. The Hanalian Order became the King’s Marshals. Others just faded away.
The Tarians persisted, mostly as a nostalgic relic. Minox knew they were still around, but had never met a member. It was actually surprising that a young woman like this—or any person her age—would be a part of the Order.
“Constables!” she shouted as she leaped down the steps from the bridge to the square. “I need inspectors! Right away at the Parliament!”
“The Parliament?” Kellman asked. “What the blazes happened up there?”
“Not our jurisdiction,” Captain Cinellan said. “Young woman, there was no need for you to run here. Anything at the Parliament is handled by the King’s Marshals.”
“No, I—” She now paused to catch her breath. “I need specific inspectors from here, from Inemar.”
“It’s not—”
“Captain,” Miss Morad said sharply. “This is wasting time.”
“Who do you need?” Rainey asked. She gave an odd glance to Minox.
“Two inspectors,” the Tarian girl said. “Wenning and . . . Casey?”
“Welling and Rainey?” Mirrell asked.
The Tarian girl snapped her fingers. “That was it. Yes. Where can I find them?”
“We’re here,” Minox said, stepping forward with Rainey now at his shoulder. “But like the captain said, an incident at the Parliament isn’t our jurisdiction. We can’t take a case from there.”
“You don’t understand,” the girl said. “This is your case. The
Gearbox Killer.”
That changed things, but Rainey put it to voice before Minox could. “He placed a body in the Parliament?”
“No, ma’am,” she said. “He placed a monstrous machine on the Parliament floor, and there are over a dozen people in it.”
Chapter 3
“CAPTAIN, WITH YOUR permission,” Minox said, pointing toward the Tarian and the bridge. He fully expected the captain to grant it, there was no meaningful reason not to. If this was another strike from the Gearbox Killer, they should go directly there to investigate.
“Absolutely not.”
This did not come from the captain, but from Miss Kendra Morad.
“Who is this?” the young Tarian woman asked.
“Kendra Morad. Special advocate and advisor from the offices of the Archduke of Sauriya.”
“Good for you,” the Tarian said. “But I need constables. These two.”
“Captain,” Rainey urged.
“I agree with you,” Captain Cinellan said to Rainey. “If this young woman is right, you two need to investigate.”
“I am raising an objection, Captain,” Miss Morad said.
“And I’ve made a note of it.”
“Captain,” Miss Morad said sharply. “The regulations are clear that I need to start the proceedings with Inspector Welling today—”
“Then you shouldn’t have waited so long,” Rainey said. “We have a job to do, Miss Morad.”
“I need—”
“It is somewhat urgent,” the Tarian girl pressed. “I don’t know how stable the scene is there.”
“Please silence yourself, Miss Fendall,” Miss Morad said to the Tarian girl. Upon her shocked expression, she added, “Yes, I know exactly who you are.”
That silenced the girl.
Miss Morad turned to the captain. “I have the authority—”
“Your authority does not extend to interfering with my people’s investigations,” Captain Cinellan said. “You wasted your own time with this charade you insisted on. Now—”
A Parliament of Bodies Page 4
