by Trevol Swift
“Now that you have explored more of the abbey, you simply must tell me what you think? I would love to compare notes. I’m still impressed. I only discovered it myself recently. I thought you were clever. The moment I saw your pretense of sophistication, I said to myself that is one clever girl. I was assured of it once I met your lovely cohort.”
“The embracing couple,” Jhee mumbled.
“Your cloister ghosts. Yes. Via my blunder then. Your sudden arrival prompted me to clean up after myself. I had been using the puppet as a decoy to fool the bed check and give the impression certain places were haunted. Then Pyrmo informed me they hadn’t let your vessel sink as I suggested. I improvised as best I could, but not enough.”
“All the talk of malign forces was you giving a good show. The Mist Abbess rumors didn’t start with Saheli’s arrival. They began with yours some full-months before. With the crop blight and weird chemicals, ghost hysteria hit Torilsisle, and you were all too happy to capitalize on it.”
“Quite the contrary. I caused it. You said it felt strange to cypher here. The tremors resulted from my attempts to perform the incomplete rites. I knew I had missed some nuance. I had thought to search the archives again while everyone was preoccupied with the banquet. It took some time to locate the missing start sequence. Thank you for oh so helpfully pointed out part of the instructions were missing.”
The Unraveling Tale I
Stunned, numb, Jhee allowed the vizier to guide her back to the hermitage. She once again found herself laid bare and belittled at Lady Bathsheba’s table surrounded by her terrifyingly beautiful things. The vizier cleaned up as the kolal heated.
Jhee had failed. Her responsibility had been to see her cohort safely to the capital as she had promised Kanto’s grandmamere and sworn in remembrance of Mirrei’s mamere. She could not pry her attention away from the purplish, blood-smeared, and dirtied sash. Her tabard of office weighed on her like an anchor.
“I meant to have tea ready, but you arrived earlier than I expected. Why so taciturn? I’d imagined you full of questions and more talkative than this. This is the part in your stories I always loved, where Jeja would sit down with the villain and allow them to tell the story of why they did it.”
Lady Bathsheba noticed Jhee’s gaze on the sash. She snatched it up.
“Ah, amethyst. Bright Harmony’s preferred accent color. No. No. No. My word, you didn’t think? Justicar, what good would that have done me? He is far more valuable alive. More so than the panicky Mr. Pol. Men like him can be replaced as can men like the Prospectives. Unlike the irreplaceable treasure you don’t make proper use of. Your disinterest shall we say in his obvious charms impressed itself even on me. With the care and work he puts into his appearance, it’s positively criminal for you to neglect his efforts.”
“It was Mr. Pol?” Jhee mulled over the thought. The finger claws on the hand had been dirty and ragged, which could have happened while trapped. However, they lacked nail lacquer and foil work traces. The clothing and the fur color had not matched her husband’s. “It was Mr. Pol,” she asserted.
“Hopefully, now you are in a better frame of mind to listen to what I must say. Please, if you have any questions for me, now is the time to ask.”
“Kanto, where is he?”
“We’ll get to that.” Lady Bathsheba poured kolal into both their cups. Jhee did not touch hers. “I am not petty or vindictive. What do you take me for?”
“A perverter and killer of men.”
“You have me there. You would already be dead if that were my wish. We need to come to an arrangement. I am being courteous to you because you have been a worthy opponent. You should not refuse my hospitality.”
“With all the poisonings around here, you shouldn’t be insulted by reasonable precautions on my part.”
Lady Bathsheba picked up her cup and drank. She grimaced at her cup. “A little bitter. Forgive the bad pour. Nowhere near the skill of your husband’s. My palette’s been off since my little dip.”
“You mean the night you poisoned us.”
“A bit of theater. Nothing more. Nothing we ate or drank was poisoned. Harming myself once was enough. A little fireroot on the fingernail, dab some in your eye or another mucous membrane. Sweats, complexion change, palpitations set in. Very dramatic. I do need to thank you for my daring rescue. The intent was to disappear with you as witness, not drown.”
“Staged. Just like your accident before my arrival.”
“Not entirely. I didn’t realize the archivist was stalking you. I fell into the springs by accident when she attacked Mr. Pol. That ninny was so determined to catch the Trouble Maker she ran after him and left us to die. I’d say that’s enough time for me to be showing signs of anything you suspect I might have added to the tea. Now, please, have some. It’s so nice to have a proper tea.”
Jhee made a show of picking up hers and bringing it to her lips. She was, however, not foolish enough to drink.
“There. Civility. While it is a bit of a relief to have everything out in the open, I’m curious as to how you figured it out. Was it only seeing me with the puppet?”
“’Sometimes it is the trifles which mean the most.’ It’s rarely anything obvious. Anyone can reckon the obvious. It’s the details, the minutiae. Small misalignments are the elements most people miss. Tiny parts of the mechanism out of place create a need in me to figure out where they fit. I sometimes lose sight of the larger device.”
“Won’t you at least give me one hint?”
“Despite your efforts to convince me you were a reclusive hermit, a paranoid shut-in in fear for her life, it never quite felt right. Everywhere, everyone from physician to abbess greeted me with accounts of your active hand, participation in abbey affairs. Almost as if you ran it instead of the assigned abbess, a Mist Abbess, in effect. I suppose you could have done it via messages. Much like you did with your acolytes. Your appearance at the refectory after Shep’s episode rang most falsely. No one seemed shocked by your presence. As if they were used to it. Why did you have keys to the infirmary stores? Also, I never mentioned Mr. Akesheem was missing.”
“Oh, so thorough. I like it.”
“After Mr. Akesheem’s testimony, the brand which I had initially taken as some form of gang marker, turned out to be the marker of a different illicit affiliation. That and the visage on the weregeld bracelets I did not recognize.”
“Not only tokens of my affection and dark power, but trackers. The ‘Talisman of the Wave Witch.’ I had convinced them it would protect them from the dark forces of the abbey and the marshes. Proof of membership in my salon.”
“Along with expensive silks and cologne. I must have picked some up from your other acolytes. The infirmarian for one.”
“If memory serves me correctly, artifice marks were considered the preferred way to put arcane enhancements on males in days past. In order for Dawn Wolf to so much as think of cyphering or be released from berserker service, what manner of implants and trackers might he have on him? Bright Harmony likely has a paternity stamp somewhere. Others put their mark on their property, I put my mark on mine.”
“Just how many others are ‘yours’? You seem to have hands in every spire.”
“My acolytes strategically placed throughout the abbey helped me obtain people, the odd relic or two, the occasional drug from the infirmary or agri-pods.”
“Did we miss anyone in your salon?”
“With Mr. Pol meeting with the wind and waves, all dead. I find keeping secrets easier the fewer who know. Pyrmo’s suicide and Akesheem’s rescue sent him into a bit of a panic. Men can be so emotional, don’t you think? It always falls us, women, to do the most vital work.”
Jhee scoffed. “Suicide?”
“Pyrmo and I discussed her options in the past and agreed it was best. I anticipated she might lose her nerve, so I did it for her. A much more painful end than Saheli’s, which could have been avoided if she had done it herself.”
“The
black orchid tea. So, you meant to kill me too?”
“If you drank the tea by itself, you would have been fine.”
“Until you chose to administer the chaser.”
“If. Merely a precaution.”
“Her moonshine, the tea; a two-part reaction of creeper toad venom and toadstools.”
Lady Bathsheba clapped and beamed with delight. “That’s exactly what I used. Well done.”
Jhee studied her cup, doubly glad she hadn’t drunk any. “Why kill the Prospectives? It seems you had found an equilibrium. What changed?”
“Lot Number Fifty-one or the request for it. Mr. Pol procured men. I procured other items. Rare books and artifacts. Exotic medicines. One of our regular clients asked us to procure a collection not a person: The Eclipse Chest, or effects and paperwork collection Lot Number Fifty-one. Lot Number Fifty-one was a strongbox containing various, papers, relics, and a dodecaptych, twelve-part arcane manual, gifted to the abbey and thought lost. It turns out the reason no one could find it was the lot had been broken into pieces first then archived.”
“The stolen items from the archives.”
“Then Yaou found that drenched triptych in the strongbox. An early arcane manual of some sort. I’m not sure of who the author was. Certainly, not Thaedra. Maybe her sorcerous rival. Almost certainly, someone of the Pillarist persuasion. Keep in mind this structure’s history. I was curious.”
“With the sudden interest, you wanted to peek and see if you could gain some advantage.”
“It was an unusual request, after all. This particular client had always asked for people. What would they want with a musty old relic? In fact, I had two competing requests come in for it. I concluded it must have some sort of significance and that it could be worth far more than I was being offered. I was curious as to what the object was and investigated further. Imagine my surprise when it turns out that I may found the legendary Altarpiece of the Creed or at least an early reproduction.
“I managed to learn one or two techniques such as that glamor before Yaou absconded with it. Along with a ritual, which I enacted. I awoke something. I attempted the ritual again with similar results. It’s then I realized the collection was incomplete.”
“Part of the instructions were encoded in the finger maze.”
“Exactly. Now, you’re playing your part. This is where you ask me why I invited your household to tea.”
Jhee rolled her eyes. She knew why. “Why risk it?”
“I had read your requests. I needed our first tea to assess you. Were you a drunkard, a relic lover, lustful? I originally meant to scare you off until I realized you knew how to unlock the finger maze. The second tea for you to demonstrate how it worked.
“You are not mistaken in that most of my powers were trickery. While nowhere near as accomplished at the arcane as you, I do have some training. Mostly the parlor trick variety like your Star Mirror. I want to thank the two of you for showing me how to work the manual.”
“I can’t believe Abbess Pyrmo was a party to this.”
“Don’t be too hard on her. She was a thief and a smuggler from long back who was no good at covering up her affairs. She and Zalver had been pilfering from the abbey for years. Ever since she was passed up for promotion to abbess. She needed my help. Once she did, I had her. It was a simple matter to compel her to kill Saheli once she became suspicious. Then a recommendation to the Chief Abbess.”
“And you were able to assure the appointment of an abbess more accepting of your habits. The only snag was Sister Elkanah wanting to confine everyone to the Corrections Hall.”
“Then that Xendatia business. No one wanted Invokers running around. They only make a mess. She’s been almost as much of a problem as Saheli. Every time I thought the matter sunk, another piece of flotsam surfaced to cause trouble. So many meddlers between her and your whole household.”
“Dawn Wolf had secured permission to autopsy the Prospectives. You slipped him raw, land meat to stop it.”
“Technically, the mortician did. Though she didn’t know what would happen. The incident also split your focus, bought time, and gave me a way to ingratiate myself to you by helping.”
“Not many know what he is, let alone how to involuntarily trigger a slip.”
“It’s not hard to deduce if you know what to look for. His tattoos. His military service. Knowledge of Toril. An aversion to land meat. Not many know about the last. I don’t imagine many berserkers are eager to tell given the results. I’ve had occasion to deal with the Medical Protectorate. In fact, it’s dealing with them that instigated this whole disaster.”
“What about kidnapping my husband?”
“The plan was to catch one of your other spouses, the ones of which you’re most fond. On my way to finalize the details with my accomplice, who should leap into the net, instead? My personal favorite among them. A sure sign from the Makers.”
The Unraveling Tale II
The lady was a good storyteller. Now Jhee understood how easy it would be for the sheltered and lost to fall under her sway.
“You pitted Saheli and her former prioress against each other. Just like you tried to pit her against the smugglers. There is where your plan fell apart. The abbess befriended the smugglers because, for all her flaws, she cared about people. She remembered the first duty of the abbey as a beacon. You then used that to frame the poor abbess and taint her legacy, using her sympathy and mentoring of young men to paint her as a maneater. Saheli befriended most of those you sent against her.”
“All it takes is one. Such as one drunk bitter, she had been passed up for a promotion.”
“And you as the caring and sympathetic vizier suggested what remedy the poor put upon pious clergy should use against the heretical, radical abbess. You made the ordeal oil. Pyrmo wasn’t in the storehouse covering her tracks. She was covering yours.”
“They didn’t need all that much convincing. Despite being a thief, smuggler, and drunk, Pyrmo still felt she should have been named abbess. Between you and me, I think she was more than happy to be rid of the excess males. It almost became a race to see who did her in first. Elkanah, the reformed Pillarist, wanted heretics. Zalver wanted a villain, and I gave her one. Zalver self-medicated because she was once a Counter-Inquisitor with the Invocation. Did you know that? I suspect part of her misses it. She much like you was oh so eager to see Trenchmasons everywhere. Conspiracies always made for so much more juicy narratives than the mundane truth.”
“Once Saheli confided her expansion plans to you, you had Prospective Yaou steal a copy. You showed the deacons only the parts of the plans guaranteed to infuriate them. When she announced her new reforms, Pyrmo’s lucrative sideline would be threatened as would yours.”
“It was bad enough to be exiled here, but to no longer be allowed to live in the manner to which I was accustomed. Her foolishness had spread to even my salon, some were even contemplating taking these silly arcana classes of hers.”
“You were everyone’s friend and confidante, whispering in their every ear. Including mine.”
“The traditionalist and the fanatic in their pride and arrogance over their priceless relics and treasures. Poor, good-hearted reformist trying to save the world. The hedonistic Serra always craving new sensations and experiences. Last, the stressed-out magistrate who wanted nothing more than a shoulder to lean on and a brief escape from responsibility.”
“Raigen’s recitation about three broken vows: abstinence, humility, and hospitality.”
“I specialize in matriarchal issues, Justicar. Those starved for powerful, maternal approval like Kanto or those drowned in maternal affection like Mirrei. You and Kanto have more in common than you think. Empty, distant households where you always had to be the adult. Imperial spouses confined as they were to the Imperial isles have similar weaknesses. Sheltered. Often overlooked and underappreciated. Allowed few if any visitors.”
“Except for tutors.”
“Except tutors. Sist
er Serra was an amateur at a game I perfected there.”
“Lure them in with drugs and liquor.”
“I’ve been cooking up mood adjusters since before you were weaned.”
“Young, unsophisticated men whose minds were altered by your concoctions would be impressed and have no idea your magical powers were no more than tricks. Then what happened? The novelty wore off, and your hold on them began to slip? You read the triptych and thought here was your chance to impress them and regain your power over them. It worked too well. They got freaked out and ran over half the isle yelling about demons. You had to silence them or risk what you had been up to coming to light.”
“It’s my fault for encouraging them. I indulged them, gave them the finest of everything. A few I even allowed access to the restricted archives. I allowed them the run of the abbey, looked the other way as they practiced minor arcana. You did well not to do so with your husbands. The Sages were right. Nothing but disaster comes of it. Look no further than that abomination they’ve constructed out there.”
“Much better to initiate your own abomination here, by practicing arcana you don’t understand. You provoked the drake. Using the triptych like a toy killed Prospective Imsu.”
“We were in the Low Spire altar room. I began the ritual, and a tremor hit. Part of the ceiling collapsed on Imsu.”
“To cover up his death, you brought him to the courtyard and pushed some rubble on him.”
“Matters deteriorated from there. Leigh panicked. I scared him, poor thing, and he wanted to leave the salon. Meanwhile, Yaou stole part of the triptych.”
“He wasn’t frightened?”
“Quite the contrary. Yaou had gotten a taste for the dark arts. I got the idea to poison him after the second novitiate’s death. I used an aerosol poison. I was feeling a bit clever, and it made a bit of poetic sense. One novitiate died crushed by stones. The other by water.”
“Saheli met quite the fiery end.”
