The Songstress Murders

by J. B. Garner

  “I can tell you what happened with Alysa, at least from what I know.”

  “Please do.”

  “Grief over Ria's death tore her apart for the longest time. We saw her here less and less often and each time she was more … diminished, withdrawn. I tried to bring life back into her, but she was stubborn.” His brow turned into a twisted knot of wrinkles. “It was more than the death, I think. Alysa saw something, knew something, and that shattered her heart, her ability to trust, and, above all, her faith.

  “It is why this is such a surprise to me. With such darkness in Alysa's heart, the idea that she could love again stuns me to my core. Garden's grace, the last time I spoke with her, some years ago, I swore that Lady Alysa was so emotionless that her heart had petrified.”

  “Orveel, this is naturally confidential but there is a monster from the Pit that has been responsible for the fires in the Second Ward. It called itself the Ragnard.” I glanced at him. “Could such a monster have committed the horrors that day?”

  Orveel's eyes widened and his countenance turned grim. Again, it pained me to see him such. “We Heartsworn do not often clash with those of the Pit, for that is more in the auspice of our Nymian brothers and sisters. That name, though, I do know. Flame and hunger made into demonic flesh, the Ragnard are fiends of the highest order.” He nodded slowly. “It is certainly within its power to have caused those accursed flames in the Hsu estate.”

  It was all speculation. Based on facts, based on truth, but they were still educated guesses. Yet, what ran through my mind was starting to make sense. Even if I was right, if the pieces were dropping into place as I believed they were (something I wished with all my heart was wrong), there was one major hole left unexplained, the murders themselves. There was only one place I could hope to find the answers.

  Thick arms wrapped around my shoulder, bringing me out of my thoughts. “Vela, dear Vela, are you going to be all right? I am sorry to have brought such ill tidings but the heart needs to know its path through the Garden. Only the light of truth can do this.”

  I rose, leaving Orveel's comforting hug behind. “I don't know, but I know what I must do.”

  There was no time for solace right now. As Orveel said, the light of truth was what I needed before I could find my heart's path. It seemed that right now my own needs and my Duty would be satisfied by the same thing. Unlike my rambling walk to the Lifeblood, I cut a direct path to the edge of the Garden, tuning out everything around me.

  What coins were left in my purse I would need to save for a carriage back home, but the Grand Stair was close and it would take me right near Milady's manse. The walk would do me good, stretch my limbs, and let me focus my mind for what was to come.

  If Milady was home, I would confront her; divine the exact depth of her connection to these affairs. If she wasn't, well, I was sure Xian would let me in. Milady had violated my trust several times over and, if I was right, had done so more than she had admitted. I felt more than justified in snooping around until she returned.

  By the time I had left the Gardens, the midday press had hit the streets. Workers rushing to midday meals, others changing shifts, idle nobles searching for distraction, and many more flooded the vast avenues of the City. I moved with the flow, well-practiced at cutting through the City streets and into the great stream up the Stairs. Midway up to the fifth layer, pressed by flesh on all sides, I felt the tingle in the back of my skull, that familiar feeling of the Harried Herald about to appear with his messages.

  “This is not the best time,” I whispered through my teeth.

  Ignoring my comment, the Herald blinked into existence. It was a mixed blessing that, as a spiritual manifestation, I was the only one that could see and hear the Herald sent to me. Though this meant that its communications were confidential, the Herald possesses no telepathic powers or the like. Any return message would be exceedingly rude and strange, talking into midair, despite the relative availability of Herald charms.

  “You know as well as any, Vela Redmane, that I don't have time for your schedule,” the Herald, this time in the form of a middle-aged, bespectacled Olden man, grumbled. “I have an urgent missive from Inspector Hors Blackfoot.”

  I stopped the roll of my eyes and nodded curtly as I tried to pay attention while not being lost in the sea of people.

  “He wished to inform you that your expert witness has been allowed to examine the confiscated golem at the Ward station,” the Herald reported. “All the paperwork and credentials are in order, though he requests that you finish your end of the Expert Accreditation Form when you arrive back at the Watchtower. Lady Hsu's study of the golem should be finished within the hour and her reports filed with you by morning.”

  I held back a curse. Another layer of deception was the only thought I had. There was no other reason why Milady had not come to me with this. Already known by my reports to be an expert I was consulting, it would have been child's play to go to Hors and navigate the bureaucracy to be let in. Milady would be committing no offense and Hors, bound to his Inammi practices, would see nothing wrong with it either. Who knows what her plans were with the Bard? Yet there was nothing I could do, caught in the unstoppable wall of people flooding up the Stairs to the fifth layer.

  “Is there anything you wish to reply with, Vela?” the Herald said, taking this one moment of idleness to adjust his frumpy uniform. “I really need to go either way.”

  There was nothing to be done for it. It was best if Hors knew nothing yet. I had to trust that whatever Milady's intentions, there were not of ill will to the Bard herself. “No, you can go,” I told the Herald, who was gone before I was finished.

  “I'm going!” the roly-poly Daj woman in front of me said. “I can't go any bleedin' faster, can I?”

  “My apologies, ma'am,” I said, jostled by another surge in the traffic. “It seems we're all caught up in currents beyond our control today.”

  From the notes of Lady Alysa Hsu, 17 Octavian 736 PC:

  Nothing more I could do with the Bard. The geasas were still in place, though the state of the golem's programming was so erratic that there was an ever-growing chance for that programming to clash against the restrictions. If that were to happen, there was no way to tell the outcome other than the Bard's destruction. Twinge of regret at the notion, but would make what needed to be taken back much simpler to reclaim.

  When night fell, could ensure the Bard's release. It wouldn't stay, not with new instructions, even though part of its programming might bid it to. With the golem free for the ritual, would only need to rush the rest of the project by a slight bit to get the final three components needed. It would be over soon.

  Have warm thoughts of that day and all the nights in the future to spend in Vela's arms. With wealth at hand, perhaps could convince her to leave the Watch. She's too smart, too important to be wasted with those dull-minded dogs. We could do great things together or simply live our lives in bliss. Both were tempting.

  Only one major difficulty outside the ritual remained and that was Redmane herself. Problem of utilizing Blackfoot was that the compulsive order-keeper would tell Vela of my visit. She was smart enough to start to put pieces together and convicted enough for a confrontation. I might be forced to reveal enough of the ritual and its meaning to make her understand.

  She had to understand. She would understand.

  Gear from warehouse was easy to teleport to my sanctum via sympathetic links. Watch was thick in the Second Ward, had to be cautious. All indication was that Brothers were being pushed back hard, as expected and according to projections.

  After that, a flight incantation was enough to take me safely to the manse. The first layer spread underneath me, ants scurrying in the dirt and muck. Would be free from it soon and longed to make Vela free from it too.

  My mistake came in becoming too focused on what needed to be done and the future; not paying full attention as came to land two bells past midday. Xian was outside the front doors when
it was programmed to maintain the manner yard that day. It seemed eager to get my attention but I was too lost to truly process it. I had my fill of erratic golems already.

  Ordering Xian back to work, it opened the double doors wide for me. Lost in the intricacies of the plan, I almost walked straight into the bountiful chest of Vela Redmane.

  Continued from the journal of Inspector Vela Redmane, 17 Octavian 736 PC:

  “Vela, what are -” Milady tried to say, surprise cutting through the mask.

  “No, Milady, it is I that have questions for you,” I interrupted. Despite the roiling tempest inside, I kept to my Watch training, staying calm on the outside.

  Milady's hair had the look of being wind-blown and, though her clothes looked clean and neat, if slightly out-of-date, there was a lingering smell of ash and sulfur my sharp nose detected. A sorcerous cleaning isn't as thorough as you might imagine. Her golden eyes flashed at my interruption, but her recovery was swift and seemingly complete.

  “Of course, beloved, ask me anything you wish.” She smiled in that tight way of hers and I had to force myself to look past the outer beauty, to stay true to the facts I now knew.

  “There is much to ask.” I folded my arms, putting on the face I reserved for a hostile witness. “We should start with the most immediate events, such as why you went to see the Bard in holding, using my authority to do so?”

  The smile hardened and she stood up as straight and tall as her petite frame would allow, nearly up to my height. “I am doing what I must to ensure your safety and to see an end to this.”

  “An end to what exactly? My fellow Watchers fighting for their lives against the Foi, the dozens held captive for who knows what reason, the Pit demon torching businesses and claiming even more lives, or maybe the string of murders at the root of it all?”

  Milady closed the door behind her, head still held high. “Vela, I love you. I long to have you in my bed, at my table, living our lives with the freedom and joy my money can provide. To answer your questions with a question, do you not trust me that I love you and the end of which I speak is the one that is best for you as well?”

  “Trust?” My voice was rising involuntarily. “You ask me to trust you when you have lied to me at least three times in as many days? More than that, I fear.” Unable to maintain the act, I put my hands on her soft shoulders. “I have such passion for you, but how can we love if you won't be honest with me?”

  Soft turned to hard as her body turned rigid under my hands. “You speak of honesty yet your dedication crumbled at the very sight of a greater beauty, an unliving thing no less! You thought not to tell me about your declaration to the Bard, after all.”

  “I was in the midst of doing so when you revealed you had already been listening” - I held up the resonance crystal she had given me, trying not to show how much her barb had struck home - “so I assumed you already knew, just as you implied. Besides, you were a Myrienite once. You know how our hearts work, how love can walk down multiple paths.”

  “How do you know that?” That chink in her armor sealed itself quickly. “It does not matter. The operative word is 'once'. I do not follow Myrien any longer. Did the Mistress of the Garden save my mother or quench the corruption that ate my legs?” Milady's tone was as cold as stone. “No. Did the Pure One root out the evil before it claimed my soul? No. And what of your vaunted Watch, did they find the criminal at the heart of it all?” Now her voice became a shout. “No! They were all worthless!”

  The insults to the things I held dear were simple to ignore. They were based on deeper trauma. “Milady, I know the pain that you must feel, the grief that was never relieved, but even the best of us can fail. That it happened to you when it did is horrible, but -”

  “I feel no pain, Vela. One more thing I dealt with under my own power.”

  I wasn't sure if I believed her or not. The lack of emotion in her stance, her voice, both were convincing, but I had seen and felt the passion Milady was capable of. “Say what you will, but if you allow love into your heart, you allow fear, pain, everything.”

  “You do not understand, Vela, you truly do not.”

  “I may know more than you think.” I folded my arms again. “If you don't wish to tell me the truth, to explain what your role in this is, perhaps I can simply start telling you what I think, what I have deduced, and you tell me if I'm right or wrong, eh?”

  Again, I swore I saw a waver in that stone-like resolve as she answered my question with a sudden kiss. The fire behind it was cool, with a mere fraction of the intensity of nights previous, but it wasn't entirely extinguished. “Please, Vela, I know you are upset and perhaps rightfully so, but if you continue down this path, you might upset everything.” Another kiss and I felt my own resolve start to erode as I returned it. “In only a few days, it will be over, the ritual will be finished, and then we will have the 'happily-ever-after' we both deserve.”

  I ran my hand through her hair and scratched her ear in that one spot she loved, even as that fact about the ritual was filed away. “We don't always get what we deserve, my dear.” Despite my desires, I pulled back. “What did you do to the Bard? Did you put more geasas on her? Did you create her? Are you the Lady she speaks of?”

  “It. The Bard is no more a Folk than a hunk of stone or the legs I wear!” There was a fire I had never heard before now and it made Milady's normally angelic, if smoke-scarred, voice turn sour. “Your naiveté is your weakness, Vela. Don't let it fool you. You can trust it no more than a good sword. You can't love it.”

  “If you will tell me nothing of the Bard, tell me about this ritual. What do you intend to do?” As much as I hated myself for it, I saw a chance to strike, to push, to hope the witness would slip up.

  “I will do what the Watch couldn't. I will get justice for Mother and me.” Fatalism and anger laced her words as my Moral Compass spun wildly, as if it wanted to tear out of my blouse towards Milady.

  “What I hear in your voice isn't lust for justice. It is desire for revenge and that is toxic.” I made one more play to make her see reason, to open to me. I only hoped I had deduced the truth correctly. “If you truly want justice for the fire, if you want to stop the Ragnard from claiming more lives, more souls, confide in me. Between you, me, the Bard, and the Watch, we can stop this monster.”

  The flash in her eyes told me what I needed to know. “I need no help and I will not risk you. Vela, I need you and nothing will keep me from you when this is over.” That sense of finality never left her and my hackles raised just a hair. “Just know that I must do what I must do and that, despite your lack of understanding, I will still welcome you when this ends.” She stalked past me, her golem legs clanging on the marble floor, wafting a mix of her own perfume and that lingering stain of sulfur.

  “Milady.” She paused at my word. “You too must know that I will do the same. I swear that if you have a hand in these grisly deeds, I will clap the irons on you as I would any other criminal.”

  Milady grunted. “You should leave now, Vela.” With that, she was gone deeper into her manse.

  The golem butler clanked up beside me as I tried to gather the tangled strings of thought and feeling. “Junior Inspector Redmane, my mistress has asked you to leave. If you do not comply, I shall be forced to call the Watch.”

  I glanced at Xian and understood why so many could see nothing more than mere tools in any golem. I nodded to him, no longer content with calling any golem an 'it', and left the mansion.

  What was more telling to me than what Milady said was what she didn't say. She knew exactly what the Ragnard was and that the beast was what ravaged the Hsu estate a decade before. Milady's mother had died by its hands along with so many others, while she managed to save herself through her sorcery. Now, Milady had some greater plan to destroy the creature, but how exactly? It had to involve the Bard in some way, which made sense, as she was well-versed in the Nymian purification and exorcism hymns.

  What concerned me now was wher
e the murders tied into this. The deaths of the Foi Brothers could be no accident, not as their deaths seem to have been the trigger for the Ragnard's return. Add in the whispered connections between Lord Aiden and the Brothers themselves and it turned into a complicated web missing too many strands, a web I feared those I loved were wrapped up in.

  I considered heading into the field, meeting up with the Second Ward Watch seeking out the Foi, to hopefully pry the answers I needed from the eldest of the Foi, Yung himself if need be. That would be the most expedient method, but my thoughts wandered to the Silver Bard, locked in what was essentially an equipment locker. I needed to know if she was well, and perhaps I could find enough wiggle room in her chains so she could tell me what I needed to know. First, though, I needed to return to the burned-down warehouse, to divine what Milady's purpose had been to return there.

  From the notes of Lady Alysa Hsu, 17 Octavian 736 PC:

  The anger was cold this time instead of hot. Wanted to scream, sob, and break, but held it in. Still, hot tears streaked face. Redmane was probing too close, but I could not falter now. So very close.

  A growing question was what to do if Vela made those final steps, tried to stop the ritual, and ruin everything. Her righteous ignorance could inadvertently bring everything crashing down; let the bastard get away once again. If push came to shove, which was more important?

  I delayed that decision for now. After all, her interrogation told me that she was not close enough to jeopardize my efforts and I still have faith that, if she knows the truth, she will see the need to help instead of interrupt.

  Stepping into my sanctum, I wiped my eyes. Saying goes that true love brings pain. Very true, but I will persevere for Vela's sake. Striding over to the golemancy table where my gear were laid out, exactly where the suit and tools teleported to. Arcane locks and wards were undisturbed still. Redmane hadn't managed to penetrate this far, another assurance all was well.

  I needed to get everything ready to collect the third ingredient tonight while it was available. To do that, would have to recharge, clean, and prepare everything, especially as this would ensure the Bard's release.