Justicar Jhee and the Cursed Abbey

by Trevol Swift

  What if the problem was the distance between him and his denbe? Shep’s attempt to be a well-meaning intermediary only heightened the problem. Could he even assure himself Shep meant well, though?

  “Flatter her. Don’t be a burden.”

  Shep’s help always hung in the space between sabotage and self-destruction. Kanto and denbe needed to find their own accommodation. How to assert himself and his needs, though, without adding to her burdens?

  Kanto wiped his forehead with a handkerchief only to realize it was the one denbe had ‘picked up somewhere.’ He shoved it back into his robes.

  “Bright Harmony, what are you doing?” the vizier asked.

  Kanto started. “Coming to see you,” he quipped to cover his embarrassment and gave her a charming smile.

  She tilted her head. “Is that so?”

  He sighed. “There was something I wanted to investigate.”

  “Taking after your denbe, I see. I was on my way to speak to her. You shouldn’t be about unaccompanied. Don’t you know there is a killer about with a murderous desire for young men?”

  Suddenly, he felt childish and even worse foolish. What was he doing out here? Well, denme, she’ll hate that I’m here, too.

  “What was that?” The vizier clasped the codex and amulet closer to her body. She tensed upon scrutiny of every shadow as if expecting an Unmaker to leap from every single one. “Come, let us return you to her care forthwith.”

  She offered him her arm. He paused to consider if he should take it. The vizier was still a handsome woman. One, who were he still entertaining suit, he would not have accounted a hardship to be paired with. Yet he knew authoritatives like the vizier from years having to prepare and serve tea for grandmamere’s visitors. To them with their cups held out, he was invisible except when they leered. He minded being invisible little. The better to serve his information gathering.

  With denbe, Kanto minded being invisible much. He wanted denbe to see him and his worth. He had not accomplished what he set out to do. If he returned with nothing to show for his efforts, he confirmed his wife’s opinion of him as shallow and frivolous. Maybe she was right. Maybe he was out of his depths. He was no investigator.

  “I don’t know about this, Bright Harmony. I think we should go. Now. As soon as possible.”

  Lady Bathsheba swiveled her head this way and that at the slightest noise. Kanto rapped one of the statues in an alcove. Tap. Tunk. A flatter thump than the others greeted him.

  “In a moment, Lady Bathsheba. I want to try this one, last...” Kanto pushed. The statue rotated inward unexpectedly. He tumbled through the opening.

  The Cellar

  “I don’t like this, Bax.”

  “Me neither, Justicar.”

  “Drench, foolish man. There’s still a killer on the prowl.”

  With a taste for young men. Jhee and Bax made their way down to the central hall. She did not anticipate having to tell the vizier her husband had run off. Which outcome horrified her more? Him wandering around the abbey a step ahead of murderers? Or as she had wondered all along his interest in her had revolved around money and ambition? What if she did find him seeking the vizier’s attention? She would simply have to manage.

  Outside the annex, Cheiropthys emerged. From the Cheiropthys mask to the clothes, all remained as she recalled from when the character had taunted her and assaulted her amongst the mineral springs. However, he held Kanto’s sketchbook. She gasped.

  “Stop there!”

  Cheiropthys dropped the sketchbook then turned and ran. Bax gave chase. Jhee paused to scoop up Kanto’s possession. Their pursuit took them through the kitchens and across the courtyard. They ran the length of the outer perimeter. This time Jhee determined not to stop until she had unmasked that foul man.

  She had to think this through and analyze the best course. With the abbey’s layout, if they continued pursuit haphazardly, the figure could easily keep a step ahead of them. The same if she gathered others for a systematic search floor-by-floor.

  In the cellar, they turned up the crab-rat they sought. Jhee charged. Cheiropthys fled. The fiend’s shoes skidded on the rocks. She drew a burst of air. In the time it took her to stop and draw, Cheiropthys turned a corner out of her sight. The puff of air only blew around the dust where he had been.

  She ran again. The glow orb lit tunnels meant she had no source of fire to use. His foot disappeared around a corner further down the hallway. They emerged into the cloister again, having traveled in a loop. The cloister surrounded by columns and macabre sculptures.

  She stopped to draw. Cheiropthys dashed between the columns. The blast of air passed by him again. She ran to his former location. He crawled through a small archway in the wall. She squeezed through hot on his trail.

  The archway led to food stores. Cheiropthys grabbed a rack of rice and pulled it down after him. Jhee scrabbled over it. Cheiropthys pulled more shelves of food down. Next, a rack of dishes. A few wooden bowls and utensils flew at her propelled by elemental force. She defended herself with a combination of covering her head and wind bursts. By the time she looked up, he had taken off again. Pots clattered to her left.

  Cheiropthys made a whip-like motion. Pebbles pelted her. Many tiny without and much force behind them. She plowed through as another shield meant less speed. A small whir came from the mask. Jhee was ready this time. She spun aside and had a counter ready. She used an air gust to blow it back in his face. The masked figure leaped back. Only a thin, sputtering wisp of smoke came from the mask this time unlike the voluminous amounts previous.

  Her attacker ripped off the mask to reveal an obsequious face with goatee. Mr. Pol doubled over coughing. He spared a frustrated glare at the mask before he hurled it at her. She ducked. He dashed down the hallway.

  Jhee pursued again. His gender treachery and vile assaults upon innocent young men would not go unanswered. She would find Kanto even if she had to tear the whole abbey apart with her bare claws. Had Kanto’s kidnapping been belated vengeance for spoiling their plans? Or as Jhee hesitated to entertain, a prize in and of himself. His refinement, his breeding, his gentle nature. To be despoiled by some cougar like the one behind the curtained bed. She had not appreciated him. She shuddered to think to what indignities the more aggressive deviants of the capital might put her poor Kanto through. Mr. Pol and whatever dark-hearted and cruel enterprise he served ended tonight.

  At last, she corned Mr. Pol in the storeroom where the performers kept their costumes.

  “You will answer for your crimes,” she said. “Tell me my husband’s location, and I shall be merciful and speak on your behalf in front of the Central Justicars.”

  Jhee gestured for Bax to circle around.

  “Unfortunately, Justicar, I will not be going anywhere with you. There are far worse fates than imperial justice. You don’t know the forces the one whom I serve can bring to bear. Look at what the Mist Abbess did to those who defied her. The previous abbess tried to oppose her only to be struck down, too. She took us into the depths of the abbey and showed us her magical powers to influence our minds and see what she wanted us to see. She even roused the Storm Drake twice causing the earth to tremble and the waves to rise. I doubt I’d survive long enough to make it to trial. Forgive me if I pass on your generous offer.”

  Had Jhee seen it herself, heard its snoring, felt its breath? What had she seen glimmering and shining on the walls of the crypts? Toril’s resting place. The slumbering place of one of the lesser drakes. Some lesser kin to the Storm Drakes. If the greater drakes existed, it stood to reason the lesser drakes did too. Slumbering beneath the isles. Alive or preserved as the honored dead were?

  And once the fancy took her mind, she could not loosen it. Her vision sped down through the rocks of isle’s foundation to some vast cavern to where Toril and his drake slumbered until the time of the great Unmaking.

  “Please, I beg of you, tell me where my husband is.”

  Mr. Pol did not reply. More pe
bbles flew at her. His elemental skills were weak and overused. The bowls were probably the most damage he could have mustered. She might wrest control of the stones from him. A gesture not worth the effort compared to her air shields which he proved weak against.

  Jhee, also, had a more mundane alternative. She reached into her sleeve for the handle of her knife. He proved to have no skill with air. If he wasted his focus on pebbles, he could not deflect her blade.

  “You have nowhere to go, Mr. Pol. Please, surrender this instant.”

  He must be hiding in the niche. Jhee crept down the last few feet of the storeroom. She pulled out her knife. “Please, Mr. Pol, no games. All I want is my husband’s safe return.”

  With a cry, she rolled across the opening of the nook; the empty nook. The yell died on her lips. Mr. Pol had gone.

  She and Bax stared at each other. He could not have slipped past both.

  “Perhaps he was taken by the ghosts.”

  “For the last time, Bax. There are no such things as ghosts.”

  “With all the strange doings around here and then, Mr. Pol disappears into thin air.”

  “I’ll not leave Kanto in the hands of ghosts or whatever else arcane or mundane which haunts this place. Now help me search.”

  They tore the nook apart. Baskets and masks lay strewn everywhere by the end. Yet, not a single clue of where Mr. Pol had gone.

  25 The Mist Parts

  The Curtained Bed

  Kanto favored his head which rested scant inches from open air. He scrambled toward the wall of the narrow landing. The Makers’ grace alone prevented him from overshooting the landing to the steps or central shaft. He hastened to his feet and hugged the wall. What murderous architect designed such a stairwell?

  He heard muffled voices the other side of the wall. He pushed on it. “Lady Bathsheba?”

  Mumbled, distorted vocalizations answered him. He pushed on the wall again. He felt no other mechanism to open it. He turned his attention to the stairwell. The sensible course would have been to wait for Lady Bathsheba to figure out how to open the secret passage. Assuming she had even seen what happened to him. Or for denbe to find him. Dare he wait? This is what he had come to the Prayer Hall to discover in the first place, wasn’t it? To investigate the discrepancy in the Prayer Hall’s acoustics on his own and present his findings to denbe in a manner she would accept.

  Kanto had lost his glow orb in the fall. After a moment, his eyes adjusted, and his esca provided a modicum of illumination. The gloppy contents of the broken polyglass sphere trailed down the stairs. A faint, warm glow emanated from below. He placed a hand firmly against the wall to his left and wriggled and shuffled forward. The coral rock walls scraped against his fingertips. He took the extra moment to test each step before he put his weight down. As he proceeded further down the stairwell, he regretted learning then retelling the ghost story of the lost cleric trapped in the walls. He started at the slightest noise. He repeated to himself the nature of the acoustics of the abbey. They magnified and distorted every drip or crab-rat shuffle into the roar of waves or footsteps of giants. Acoustic trickery. That’s all it was.

  Only crab-rats. Those were scary enough on their own. Kanto continued to feel his way towards the light. At last, he came to a wooden door. He pushed it open to reveal a curtained bed. A cozy fire burned nearby. Golden, glow orbs rather than the more traditional and stark blue were inset in sconces on the wall a giant, single glow orb in the ceiling. He expected a room like this to be cold and damp even with the fire. However, the Prospectives had told him in certain old parts of the abbey, the hot springs ran around or even through the walls.

  Deep, high thread silken tapestries in green and golds hung from the rods near the ceiling. Furnishings made from hardwoods adorned the room, luxurious though dated. A cloying fragrance permeated the room combined with the smell of a mild, spring forest cologne. An expensive cologne with an airy woodsy scent only available via special order. Whenever Kanto smelled it as a child, he associated it with inland and the capital. A bouquet of sea roses graced the center of a black lacquer table.

  The door creaked. Kanto whirled and ran. It shut and locked as he reached it. He tried the handle. It did not move.

  The coral walls matched the color and orientation of the Prayer Hall above. A sideboard contained a staggering arrangement of food delicacies. Beside the bed, a clear decanter of Tranquility Red, the abbey’s less well-known brandy, had been opened and allowed to breathe. A pre-packed glass pipe nestled next to an ash dish containing rare aged, shaved smoke root rerolled into a tight tube. A silver tray bore Black Sea maye roe, white abalone, and algae toast points. The wall had made the passage to the Black Sea all but unnavigable spiking the price and dropping the availability of any products from the mayes of that region. Kanto’s stomach growled. He scooped up some the roe with a toast wedge.

  The table runner, with its dated scrollwork, caught his attention. He reached into his robe for the handkerchief. The pattern on it matched the runner. He sniffed the scarf. Woodsy notes. The curtained bed. Flowers. Mr. Akesheem’s kidnapping account. The lair of the Mist Abbess.

  “Please, indulge yourself.”

  The voice echoed from all corners of the room at once. Eerie screeches and deep rumbles accompanied by weird echoes. Acoustic tricks, Kanto reminded himself, due to the shape of the room and the Prayer Hall. Like the whisper wall. All the speaker had to do was stand in the right place.

  “Where are you? Show yourself.”

  “In due time.”

  “Please, I wish to return to my family.”

  “Not quite yet. Soon I promise. Do not trouble yourself. For now, truly, indulge yourself.”

  The overhead orb faded out. The secondary spheres remained the only source of light along with a few companions on the table. He waited for a while. He took up one of the lamps from the table and went to the door.

  Kanto examined the lock. A basic mechanical lock, easy enough to foil even if he did not have Bax’s skill for it. He required something long and thin to work the tumblers. Mirrei had struck a deal with Bax. She formulated and supplied him with his lockpicking aides, and he taught them how to use them, including the mundane ones. The lessons their little secret because denbe would have been scandalized. Mirrei claimed you never knew when it might be useful. He, on the other hand, had done it to alleviate the monotony. Otherwise, he might have been driven mad with boredom while denbe tried to solve the world’s mysteries. Mirrei turned out to be the one in the right.

  Kanto scoured the room for something thin to fit into the opening and strong enough to manipulate the mechanics. He paused to consider how denbe might approach the search. He felt along crevices and walls and bedposts. He had much to learn from denbe. As he had from the hours he spent listening at his grand dame’s feet. He sought to find interest in the subjects she found interest in. He sought to delight her with his stylish and bright clothes and his music playing. Some lessons went over his head. Many did not.

  On the headboard, Kanto found a slightly raised lip. He worked at it a bit with a nail to reveal a small compartment. A thin bound notebook lay atop a sheaf of parchments. He leafed through them. Names, dates, a few symbols. The symbols must have acted as a shorthand for what they had done that his captor could use against them. He had found someone’s favor lists, a potent leverage tool to share with denbe once he escaped. He tucked them away in his hidden, breast pockets. A tight fit as he had not made his as capacious as Jhee’s.

  Despite Kanto’s ordeal, his robes while dirtied and muddied retained the impeccable shape to the sleeves had worked so hard to perfect. Wire. He picked at the stitching until he created an opening large enough to worry out the wire. He separated and twisted the wire into a shape suitable to serve his purposes.

  Denbe’s house needed him as well. She may have been an academic and not a politician, but it was a deficit he could help her correct if she allowed. On some sphere, she knew or else she’d never have a
greed to the match.

  As Kanto worked the lock, he glimpsed a brand beside the fireplace. He pushed away Akesheem’s account. He shoved away the knowledge of the three dead Prospectives. A beauty such as himself did not come along often and would have been most valuable. The delicacies, along with his capture, proved the villain who held him, had some taste at least. He hated to think he would spend his last few hours with someone with bad taste. Simply unconscionable. He leaned into the lock picking. His pick bent.

  Kanto swore. He calmed himself. He was Kanto, only son of House Kenyatta, son of Kaisonia, grandson of Lady Kadence, and he would not die in some sleazy, underground boudoir decorated with dated, mismatched furnishings. His wife, the brilliant, powerful Justicar Jhee, would find him and make those who did this pay. She likely already searched for him. He refashioned the pick and tried again.

  The proper clicks went off in the right sequence. The door swung open.

  Kanto made a satisfied sound and stepped outside. A figure in a mask of the bat-faced Cheiropthys blocked his path. The figure chanted and gestured, a drawing. A small rock flew from the ground. He enacted a quick air burst. The drawing produced only an impotent puff which barely perturbed the rock.

  The rock struck Kanto on the head. Kanto covered his esca. The figure closed the distance. A white plume of smoke emanated from the mask’s mouth. The smoke hit Kanto directly in the face. He coughed. He felt light-headed.

  “The playboy?”

  “The favorite husband or the wife would have been better. Too late now. We’ll make do.”

  The images and bright colors of the coral spun about him. A moment later, he had a vague awareness of the hard-coral ground rushing to meet his face.

  The Last of the Elixir

  “Mr. Pol is still out there. And Ms. Hethyr. What if they have procured Kanto? He stormed off because we had cross words.”