Deniably Dead (Arucadi Series Book 4)
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DENIABLY DEAD
ARUCADI, BOOK 4
E. ROSE SABIN
ARUCADI ENTERPRISES, LLC
2019
DENIABLY DEAD
E. ROSE SABIN
©2019
ARUCADI ENTERPRISES, LLC
http://www.arucadienterprises.com/
COVER ART BY IGOR DEŠIĆ, ©2019
https://igordesic.artstation.com/
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 9781702134767
Arucadi Enterprises
St. Petersburg, FL 33710
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE: A ROUGH RIDE
CHAPTER TWO: MARQUEZ
CHAPTER THREE: A FINE INN
CHAPTER FOUR: GONE
CHAPTER FIVE: DEAD? AND GONE
CHAPTER SIX: HORSE AND RIDER
CHAPTER SEVEN: THIEVES
CHAPTER EIGHT: NIGHT WORK
CHAPTER NINE: FORTUNES
CHAPTER TEN: ENCOUNTER
CHAPTER ELEVEN: ON THE ROAD
CHAPTER TWELVE: FORETELLING
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: BONES
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: VISION
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: FATHER AND SON
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: RETURNED
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: REVELATIONS
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: REUNION
CHAPTER NINETEEN: TROUBLE
CHAPTER TWENTY: DOG-GOD
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: POWER
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: PLANS
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: HIDE AND SEEK
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: CHANGE OF PLANS
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: TESTING POWER’S LIMITS
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: ROADBLOCKS AND RESOLUTIONS
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: DOG’S EAR
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: FIRE AND SMOKE
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: ON THE ROAD TO HILLCROSS
CHAPTER THIRTY: THE LADY AND HER GUARD
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: FAREWELLS
FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT ARUCADI
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
A ROUGH RIDE
Renni shifted about, trying to arrange herself more comfortably, a nearly impossible feat in the narrow space left to her on the wagon’s rough floor boards. Having to share space with three other people and a coffin didn’t lend itself to comfort.
She just had to get through this night. Tomorrow they would reach Marquez, where they could stay in an inn. She’d still have to share a room with Zauna and endure the older woman’s loud snoring, but at least they would have separate beds. With more space between them and a soft mattress to lie on, she should find it easier to sleep.
Sleeping in the crowded wagon grew more difficult with each nigh, and on this sixth night since they’d left Port-of-Lords it had become impossible. Her companions’ snores, Zauna’s especially, were only part of the problem. Sleeping so close to the coffin that she often reached out in her sleep and touched its wooden side grew creepier with each passing hour. No odor issued from the coffin, for which she felt grateful. A decaying body would give off an odor strong enough to escape from this specially built coffin. Its lid was tightly sealed, but on the top a metal faceplate hid the face from view but was pierced with many small air holes that not only let air flow in but would also allow odor to escape. No odor meant no decay, didn’t it? The question of whether the coffin’s occupant was dead or alive haunted her, contributing to her sleeplessness.
She’d seen and touched the body of Kyla Cren, the former leader of the Port-of-Lords Gifted Community, before they’d placed her in the coffin. The cold flesh and corpselike pallor along with no discernible breathing all indicated that Kyla was dead. Yet Veronica, Kyla’s fourteen-year-old ward, insisted that her honorary aunt still lived, at least in some sense. Veronica had provided the specifications for making the coffin and had sworn that those and the instructions for transporting Kyla’s body to a place no one in their Gifted Community had heard of had been delivered to her by a Dire Lord. And not just any Dire Lord. Again according to Veronica, this Dire Lord, whom she called Claid, was the source of the power that flowed from him to the Power-Giver, who then channeled that power to the Gifted. The Power-Giver had been a human mage named Alair, but was now a powerful mind imprisoned in an immense crystal. Renni found the whole process confusing.
Perhaps she’d been unwise to volunteer to join three other members of the Gifted Community in transporting Kyla in her coffin across half the country to a place designated in the instructions Veronica had supposedly received from Claid. At the time, Renni had joined the rest in accepting Veronica’s words as true. Renni had come to respect the girl and her amazing powers. Veronica’s talents were greater than those of any other member of the Community and probably greater than those of all the Community members put together. That’s why Renni believed her claim that she was passing on instructions from a Dire Lord and therefore not to be disregarded.
The first two nights, when they slept comfortably in inns, Renni thought the trip a lark, a marvelous adventure. Then their road took them into a desert area, stifling hot during the day, cold at night, and without inns where they could enjoy a good supper, a fortifying breakfast, and a restful sleep between. That this would occur they knew from the outset, but Renni had discovered the difference between knowing and experiencing. Now eight days into the journey, in the middle of a dark night when sleep refused to come, she questioned whether they had been wise to act on the word of a fourteen-year-old girl, one known to be excitable and moody.
If it had not been for the absence of any odor emanating from the coffin, Renni would have persuaded, or at least tried to persuade, her companions to turn back and forget this quixotic venture. She could probably convince Lore. Like her, he’d set out with the notion that they were embarking on a grand adventure. Just two years younger than her own age of twenty-five, he did not consider her in any way his superior, but at the same time, he was easily swayed by the opinion of others and would more readily defer to her judgment than that of their much older companions.
Mulling all this over instead of getting the sleep she needed, she would have tossed and turned, had there been room to do so. In her cramped space she could only grind her teeth and consider the fact that most of their journey remained in front of them. Marquez would offer them only a brief respite, even if they stretched their stay there into three or four days to get much needed rest and to allow Zauna to shop for a new crystal ball. Zauna’s gift was seeing past, present, and future events in a crystal ball, but hers had been broken, and for her this trip was above all an opportunity to find and purchase a new one, as well as the only way she could make herself useful without her crystal ball.
The wealthy merchant who was generously financing their trip would not be pleased to see them return to Port-of-Lords without achieving their goal. That consideration as much as anything else kept them going. The others must have doubts too, although they hadn’t expressed those doubts to Renni any more than she’d expressed hers to them. It might help them to discuss frankly the difficulty of the trip and the doubts about its purpose. Or it might make everything worse.
If only she could stretch or turn over or something, but every movement made the wagon creak, and if she did manage to turn over, she’d be face to face with Zauna, inhaling the older woman’s rancid breath. She could only clench her fists and wish for morning.
Zauna let out a spectacularly loud snore that ended in an equally loud snort, followed by rustling and a mumbled, “Whassa matter?”
&nbs
p; Renni lay quietly, not answering.
“I know you’re awake,” Zauna persisted maddeningly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Renni said shortly. “I just woke up and I’m trying to get back to sleep.”
“No, I sensed something. Is Kyla all right?”
“Oh, for—No, she’s dead, or something near it, and safe in her coffin. You must have been dreaming.”
The wagon’s floorboards creaked and from the other side of the coffin came Lore’s sleepy grumble. “Can’t you hens be quiet? It’s the middle of the night. Save the chatter for morning.”
“It was more than a dream,” Zauna harrumphed. “I sensed danger. Strongly. If I had my crystal ball it would show me the danger, but without it—”
“Oh, by all the gods, woman, will you stop harping about that crystal ball and let us all go back to sleep!” Lore’s patience, limited at best, had grown increasingly short the past couple of days.
“You don’t have to be so cross with me. These presentiments I have may not be specific, but they are real. You’d be foolish to discount them.”
“Both of you, be quiet,” Renni whispered. “You’ll wake Camsen. If you haven’t already.”
“Somebody ought to get up and check outside around the wagon,” Zauna insisted.
“Do it yourself,” Lore shot back. “You’re the one that’s worried.”
“Zauna, we’re out in the middle of nowhere,” Renni said softly in an attempt at reasonableness. “I’ve been awake for some time, and I haven’t heard a sound outside. I’m sure you just had a bad dream.”
“No. Even if I dreamed the warning, it meant something. Something serious either is happening or will happen soon. I know it. Listen! I think I heard something just now.”
“I didn’t hear anything at all.” Renni made no effort to keep her disgust out of her voice.
“There’s no way I could hear anything, with you two yammering like that,” Lore sounded even grumpier.
“Someone ought to go outside and check,” Zauna insisted.
Renni silently cursed the woman’s stubbornness. Aloud she said, “It’s too dark to see anything out there. We’d just be wasting what little time we have left for sleeping.”
“Well, I can’t go back to sleep without knowing,” Zauna declared, sitting up.
“I’ll go and check,” came the offer in Camsen Wellner’s deep and now sleepy voice. “We’re all awake, and there’ll be no getting any more sleep unless we relieve Zauna’s fears.”
With much creaking of the wagon a shadowy figure rose, pulled open the canvas flaps and leaped down.
“Well, you’ve done it now, Zauna,” Lore grumped. “We’re all wide awake, and for what?”
Camsen’s footsteps could be heard circling the wagon. They paused at the sound of snorts and a whinny.
“Oh, wonderful! Now even the horses are awake.”
Camsen must have paused in his circuit to calm the horses. They settled down, and his footsteps resumed their march. If a person or an animal had come near the wagon, Camsen’s stomping about would obliterate their footprints or tracks, so now they’d never know whether Zauna’s dream held any real substance.
Renni might have expressed that gloomy thought, but at that moment the canvas flaps opened once more, and the gap revealed a ghostly figure illuminated by moonlight. Zauna let out a loud gasp, and Renni forced back the scream that fought to pass her lips.
A giggle did erupt when the figure stepped up into the wagon. It was just Camsen in a ridiculous white nightshirt that hung past his knees.
“I saw and heard nothing outside,” Camsen said. “Dora and the stars are bright tonight. Had anyone been about, they would have been visible. There’s not a tree or shrub anywhere nearby to hide behind. And the horses gave no indication of being disturbed until I reached them and—Ow!”
A loud thump against the coffin immediately preceded Camsen’s cry of pain. Moments and a few grunts later, Camsen said, “I stubbed my toe on the edge of the coffin. I always underestimate the amount of space Kyla takes up.”
“Well, I hope you didn’t wake her,” Lore said. “Though everyone else is awake. I suppose she might as well join us.”
“Shh, don’t talk like that,” Zauna cautioned.
At that Renni dissolved into giggles that quickly escalated to gales of laughter. Lore joined in, and moments later Camsen added his deep guffaws.
“Well, I never!” Zauna’s indignant exclamation only added to the others’ merriment. Before long she, too, joined in the laughter.
“I wonder if Kyla’s laughing with us,” Renni got out between bursts of giggles.
“Maybe we should unlock the faceplate and open it to see,” Lore suggested.
“No!” Zauna shouted, quelling the laughter. “Don’t even suggest such a thing in jest,” she added more quietly.
All four were silent for several moments. Then Zauna said, “I believe in letting the dead rest in peace. And I confess that I think Kyla is truly, permanently dead.”
“You think that, and yet you came on this expedition with us?” Renni hid in mock indignation her relief that the older woman had confessed a fear she shared but had not dared to admit.
“Without my crystal ball I had no way of earning a living,” Zauna said. “With Marchion bankrolling our trip, I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to live. And when I learned that in Marquez there are shops that sell crystal balls and other mystical items, I decided quickly. With the stipend that March provided each of us, I can afford to purchase a replacement.”
“And then what?” Renni demanded. “Marquez is only halfway to Hillcross. Will you go on with us? You won’t leave us, will you?”
“No, of course not. I’ve given my word. I won’t go back on that.”
“Do you swear to that?” Lore asked.
“Young man, I just said I gave my word, and I meant it. I’ll see this thing through or die trying.”
Those words sent a shudder racing along Renni’s spine. “Let’s just assume we’ll all make it to Hillcross and back home alive and well.”
“Even Kyla?” Lore asked with a chuckle.
“For her it’s a one-way trip,” Camsen said. “Now I suggest since we’re all wide awake, we have breakfast and get an early start. The sooner we reach Marquez, the better we’ll all feel, I’m sure.”
“I’m for that,” Renni said, scrambling to her feet.
“So am I,” Zauna said. “All this talk is making me nervous.”
Renni almost started laughing again. Zauna’s premonition or nightmare or whatever it was had begun this whole thing, waking everyone and getting everybody stirred up. Wisely she refrained from pointing that out.
Lore wasn’t so wise. “Seems to me,” he said, “that we’d all still be asleep if you hadn’t sounded a false alarm.”
“It wasn’t false.” Zauna’s indignant retort threatened to restart the argument, but fortunately everyone ignored it.
And maybe she was right, Renni considered. I was restless too. Maybe my discomfort wasn’t just physical. Could I have been sensing something? Some unconscious feeling that something isn’t right?
She heartily agreed with Camsen. The sooner they reached Marquez, the better.
CHAPTER TWO
MARQUEZ
Renni’s relief at their early arrival in Marquez turned to disappointment as they drove the wagon into town. She’d expected more of the capital and largest city of Wide Sands Province. She’d known Marquez would not be anything like Port-of-Lords, but her heart sank at the sight of its narrow, dusty streets and buildings of no more than three stories, or four in a few buildings in the very center of town. These few evidently housed the offices of the provincial government; however, they and the smaller, less impressive buildings all shared the same construction of red clay brick the color of the desert sand that surrounded the city. The uniformity created a depressing monotony. Renni only hoped that, when they found an inn, the building’s interio
r would offer more color and comfort than promised by the exterior. She regretted her decision to ride beside Lore on the driver’s bench on the front of the wagon rather than staying with Zauna and Camsen inside the wagon with the coffin, where they couldn’t see the depressing views of the town.
At this time of day in Port-of-Lords the streets would be full of people—men and women getting off work and heading home or to restaurants, children playing, older people just out walking, enjoying the weather. Here the hot and dry weather must keep many people indoors, and perhaps the workers either worked later or left for home earlier. Whatever the case, there were few people about. Lore halted the horses and hailed one of those few pedestrians to ask where he might find an inn.
“Depends on what sort of inn you’re lookin’ for,” came the reply.
Renni leaned across Lore to respond. “A decent one where we can get a good meal and comfortable lodging. “
“Just for the two of you?” the man asked.
“There are four of us. The other two are in the wagon,” Lore answered.
“Four, eh? You a family? Got your ma and pa in the wagon?”
Renni nudged Lore, to remind him that this fellow didn’t need that information just to give directions to an inn. Lore ignored her signal and replied, “No, we’re just four friends traveling on business.”
“What’s your business?” the nosy fellow wanted to know.
Renni gave Lore another nudge, harder this time. And this time the message got through. “Private business,” Lore said. “Can you or can’t you direct us to an inn?”
“Well, now, there’re several inns in the city, and I was just tryin’ to figger out which one might suit you best.” He paused to scratch the stubble on his chin and continued. “Four young people travelin’ together might want different accommodations than a ma and pa and two youngsters, see.”
Lore nodded. “We’re not really youngsters,” he pointed out. “And our companions are older. I guess you could consider them our chaperones. As I said, we’re respectable people here on a business trip.”