Archemi Online Chronicles Boxset

by James Osiris Baldwin

  Stefin blinked. “We have been the Royal Gemcutters for three generations, my… lady.”

  Suri nodded as she strolled forward. “Then I imagine you have a very secure system for the jewels. You don’t store them here, do you?”

  “Of course not. We keep the rubies in a special vault, as we have for generations. They are, uh, magically active, as I’m sure you know, so we must carefully bleed off some of the mana from the raw stone before they are safe to polish...”

  “Who brings the rubies to Taltos?”

  Stefin blinked a couple of times. “The Volod’s own men mine the jewels in Dakhdir, and once a year, an armored caravan brings them to the shop.”

  “Did they make a recent delivery?”

  “Y-Yes. Three weeks ago. It is always in the summer.”

  “Was the delivery or the store compromised in any way? No robberies, no trouble on the road?”

  “No, there was no trouble.”

  “And the Volod is the only one who buys these rubies?”

  Stefin nodded. “Yes, of course. It is expressly forbidden to sell them to anyone else. Your Majesty, you would not believe that I sold some of your rubies to another buyer? Even if I had the stones, I would not betray my father and grandfather’s heritage.”

  Andrik flinched, startling up straight in his chair. “What do you mean ‘even if I had the stones’?”

  “I mean… that the vault is empty, Your Majesty? You ordered them cut and polished and bought up all of the last delivery yourself. Your emissary collected the last batch.”

  “Excuse me?” The Volod leaned forward, staring at Stefin.

  Stefin shrunk back under the scrutiny. He looked uncertainly at Suri and me. “Yes, Your Majesty. It was only the other week. You do not recall?”

  The young king’s face drew into hard lines. “I am not in the mood to be toyed with, Stefin. My city is in chaos, some undead monstrosity is preying on one of my provinces, my clergy are being murdered, and now my jeweler is lying to me.”

  “I am not lying to you, Sire!” Stevin held up his hands, backing away a step. “Please, not under any circumstances would I dare. I-I have the letter, I have the receipt stamped with the royal seal!”

  “Keep going.” Suri nodded to him.

  “A-A Royal letter came with an emissary dressed in the colors of your House requesting that we cut all of the rubies and send them to the Keep,” the man stammered. “The letter was of the usual sort, so-”

  “Was this emissary a Mercurion?” I asked.

  The jeweler nodded his head, swallowing hard. “Yes. She was fully clothed from head to toe in red, but I knew what she was by way she spoke.”

  “How?” Suri asked.

  “Mercurions are simulacra. To someone who works with machines all day, the sounds they make while speaking do not sound human,” he replied. “This one had an unusually rough voice. She did not give a name... but she claimed to be the senior apprentice of a Mastercraftsman who works for your court.”

  Rin? A nasty sensation curled in my gut, twisting like a knife. Suri lifted her chin, eyes narrowing, and then flashed me an I-told-you-so look.

  The Volod sighed. “Bring me this letter and the receipt.”

  Stevin scuttled off. While we were waiting, the Volod helped himself to one of the apples in the bowl, but before he could bring it to his lips, one of his bodyguards shook his head. Grimacing, Andrik put it back.

  “Such are the times,” he said, heavily. “Ahh, Suri, Hector... I apologize for my foul temper. It is unbecoming of a Volod to be so curt with his subjects and guests. I only wish that you could have visited during saner times, instead of during this madness. Did you find anything else we didn’t discuss at the Keep?”

  “No. What we do know is that any of the priests who confessed their sins to Father Toth and who are not living inside of Vulkan Keep are in danger,” Suri said. “We need a list of men who’ve spoken to him since the murders began.”

  “I shall have it ordered tonight,” Andrik replied.

  Stefin came back a minute later, bearing a parchment scroll. He unfurled it with shaking hands, and passed it to the guard captain, who stepped forward in front of the Volod. The knight pushed his visor up, revealing a ruggedly handsome face with intense blue eyes. He was older than I’d expected. His mustache was long and white, face deeply lined. There were several minutes of silence as he read the document.

  “Let me see... yes, yes... and this is certainly your signature and your seal, Your Majesty.” The knight handed it down to him.

  “Nonsense, Garen. I signed no such order.” Andrik accepted the scroll, scowling as he read over it. But as he read, his expression shifted to something new: fear and uncertainty. “And yet... you are correct.”

  “Forgery?” I asked.

  “It must be.” Andrik held the paper up to the firelight, clearly perplexed. “Either that, or I was signing off on priceless jewels in my sleep. But I will admit this is exceptional work.”

  Stefin’s lip shook. “Please, Sire, I would never willfully betray-”

  “Silence.” Andrik squinted at the document. “Suri, you told me you can work some magic with a man’s fingerprints? Do you think there is a way to use the fingerprints of whoever signed this?”

  “Maybe. It depends how much the letter has been handled. Let me see.” She held a hand out. The Volod passed it to her, and I craned my head to see around her arm. There was a wax seal with a double-headed raven, the House of Corvinus crest, and a looping signature in dark reddish-brown ink that looked similar to blood. Beside it was a clear thumbprint.

  “You normally sign your letters with your print?” Suri asked him.

  “Of course,” the Volod replied. “I am a pious man. The hand is the tool of Khors the Maker, so I always sign my letters with a print.”

  Suri nodded thoughtfully. “I need finely ground charcoal and a soft brush.”

  “I have them downstairs,” Stefin replied, bobbing his head as he looked between us. “I’ll get them immediately.”

  While he was gone, the Volod turned his attention back to us.

  “Did you know of this apprentice?” he asked.

  “She wasn’t a suspect until now,” Suri said, before I could say anything. She was kinda-sorta lying, but Andrik didn’t call her on it. “Her name is Rin. She’s Kanzo’s senior apprentice.”

  “And why, exactly, was she not a suspect? Given that she is closely associated with the murderer?”

  “She’s a fragile non-combatant who believes her master is being blackmailed,” I replied. “The evidence seems to point to that. She didn’t know what the stones were, or anything about what her master was up to.”

  The Volod was expressionless. “I see. So this harebrained notion that Kanzo is being blackmailed by someone came from her? How novel. I suppose she’s very pretty and delicate, isn’t she? Most ‘female’ Mercurions are. They are also consummate manipulators.”

  I opened my mouth, trying to think of a rational retort that was better than ‘my instincts say she’s innocent.’ But I couldn’t think of anything.

  “She needs to be taken in as soon as possible,” Suri said heavily. “I’d even advise you to do it now, before she has a chance to flee. She convinced us she had no part in this. We found the laboratory underneath their workshop. The address is 34 Solyom Koz, in the Tanner’s District.”

  My gut tightened like a voice with every word. This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be right.

  “Garen, go rally the city guard. You and Leo can see to this,” Andrik spoke to the older mustachioed man and one of the other guards. “These six will see me safe to the Keep.”

  “As you command, Sire.” Garen put his fist to his forehead and bowed from the neck. Before I could voice my growing unease, the pair of knights departed without any argument, clanking their way down the stairs. Stefin squeezed past them and offered Suri the bowl of powdered carbon and a brush.

  And then it hit me: the rubies that Stefin
had given to the messenger had been processed. The ones we’d found in Kanzo’s stash had been raw rubies, not cut ones. Any that Kanzo had polished and ground, he’d done himself. The thief had taken them when they were cut… They couldn’t have been the same batch.

  While Suri applied ground charcoal to the Volod’s thumb, I made my decision. I opened my Player Messaging menu, and discreetly rattled off a quick message to Rin.

  “Don’t reply to this. You need to get the hell out of the Tanner’s District and hide, now. Run.” I stared at the fire so that they didn’t see my eyes or lips accidentally move, watching them from the corner of my eye.

  Suri took the Volod’s hand in hers, and for a moment, their eyes met and he smiled at her. She didn’t smile back, but instead pressed his finger against the vellum, rolled it, then lifted it to reveal a perfect print beside the red ink one. It was actually clearer than the one the forger had left.

  “Well, that’s...” she trailed off, pursing her lips.

  “What?” I wandered up, looking down.

  “They look the same,” Suri said. She sounded almost impressed.

  “Not so unique after all, then?” The Volod frowned. “I did not sign this letter.”

  I turned back, and held out a hand. “Here. Give it to me. I’ve got a dragonrider’s eyesight.”

  Suri passed it over. “I hope you see something I don’t, because to be honest with you, I’m kind of stumped.”

  I held the letter up to the lamplight, positioned it until I felt my eyes focus, and then consciously tightened them in. I could see the pores in the calfskin the letter was written on, and after a few seconds, the subtle differences in the fingerprints. They WERE different. The Volod’s was narrower, the spiral at the center tighter, and the forger had a loop at the center that Andrik didn’t. But they were similar fingers. More telling were the little scar-like lines that split off the bigger loops and whorls. They were different.

  “I’m about ninety percent sure these are different prints,” I said, handing it back and closing my eyes before they unfocused too hard, too fast. “They look really different up close. The forger’s thumb is wider, and he has more wear on his hands.”

  “You really expect me to believe that?” The Volod sounded incredulous.

  I opened my eyes and looked right at him, and he must have noticed how inhuman I really looked for the first time, because he flinched back. I focused my pupils past his cheek. “Sire, there’s a nick made by a fingernail on the very edge of that window over there. A depression about an eighth of an inch long. I can see it in about five thousand more colors than you can right now.”

  “This shit must look like an acid trip,” Sui muttered.

  “More like really good mushrooms,” I said. “You get used to it.”

  A small smile lit Andrik’s mouth. He stood and went to examine where I was pointing. And when he found the tiny groove, his smile broadened with approval and curiosity.

  “Impressive,” he murmured. “Well, we have our answer, then. I was not drugged and made to send for a shipment of rubies in my sleep.”

  “Please, Your Majesty. I beg your mercy.” Stefin, who had done his best to fade into the wall while all this was going on, clasped his hands and shook them. “I swear on Khors’ hammer that I thought her to be your genuine emissary, or-”

  “Quiet. I do not wish to hear your begging or your excuses,” Andrik said curtly. “Did you not think it strange that a lone courier would come asking for my rubies?”

  Stefin looked utterly dejected now. “But… She paid with Sathbari gold! N-No one other than you can afford such coin!”

  “We pay with Treasury Promissory notes, and have since my grandfather’s day, you imbecile.” Andrik pinched the fine bridge of his nose, and made a sound of disgust. “It is the middle of the night, and I can no longer think straight. Lazarin, Pan, you will remain here with this man and his family. Stefin, you and your family are under house arrest until I decide what to do with you.”

  Stefin hung his head. “Yes... yes, Your Majesty.”

  “I am disappointed. Get out of my sight.” The Volod flicked a dismissive hand as he got up from the chair, knees cracking. “Hopefully, we will take in Kanzo’s apprentice tonight. This blackmailing nonsense is just that, and I refuse to believe any Mercurion would only work alone or in pairs. They are a clannish species. There will be more of them involved in this conspiracy, I guarantee it. They are all atheists, worshipping only their machines, and they resent the Crown. Not only that, they school like army ants. When one grape goes bad, the whole bunch withers.”

  “Uhh, that...” I replied. Suri shot me a warning look, and I shut my trap.

  “To that end, we will take action to flush out any more co-conspirators,” the Volod sighed. “But I will tell you my plans in private. Come, let us retire. We can only hope we do not rise to find another good man slaughtered in the dead of night.”

  Chapter 22

  I’d hoped to get some time with Karalti and our character sheets when we got back to Vulkan Keep, but no such luck. Andrik ordered his Chamberlain to prepare a late supper for us in his war room. He insisted that all of us, including Karalti, had something to eat, even though we weren’t hungry.

  This led to the awkward situation of having a young adolescent dragon at a table of food she wasn’t interested in. This was a problem. Dragons are intelligent, sentient, carnivorous apex predators. Like all apex predators, they’re assholes to the genetic level - especially when bored.

  “Peanut butter!” Karalti croaked in a raspy, reptilian voice. She sat beside me at the table, wagging her head from side to side as if listening to a song only she could hear. “Peanut butter sausages! Tidbit! Fresh fish, ooohhhaaah! Best fish in Bryos!”

  “Is this… ahh… avian behaviour a common practice of dragonkind?” Andrik was using a gold knife and fork to delicately saw a sandwich into small pieces.

  “She mimics stuff when there’s nothing else to do.” I hunched into my seat as she began to burble like a crowded street. Karalti’s mimicry was like listening to a recording. She could ‘sing’ the multi-layered sounds of a village street with perfect accuracy – cart wheels rumbling, people murmuring, hookwings screeching and yarping.

  “What His Majesty means to say, Karalti, is that you sound like an overgrown parrot.” Suri grinned from across the table. She wasn’t using a knife and fork for her bagel, and neither was I.

  “Look, Tidbit! A whore!” Karalti chirped the words in a disturbingly accurate imitation of my own voice.

  For a moment, Suri looked confused, maybe even offended. But then she seemed to realize it was a joke, and flashed me a small, odd little smile. I elbowed Karalti in the ribs as the dragon narrowed her eyes.

  Andrik pretended not to notice any of it. He gestured at the dragon with his fork. “She can understand us, then? And communicates fluently with you?”

  “Yep.”

  “What does she say?”

  “Tell him I say that he’s a boring meat person and I want to set him on fire.” Karalti hunched, shook her wings out, and then heaved a long-suffering sigh that blew a small vase of flowers over on the table.

  I reached out and put it back. “All sorts of things. She’s very philosophical.”

  “Then why does she not converse?” Andrik gestured to her with one hand. “I can only imagine the contained wisdom in such a creature.”

  Karalti leaned in to carefully sniff at my glass of wine. “Why does this smell like pee?”

  I coughed a little. “Most dragons only speak to their riders, Your Majesty, but they will reach out to others if they need to. They think deeply and say very little.”

  “Oh, I understand that attitude very well myself,” Andrik said, after a bite of food. “I am also inclined to deep thought, especially while immersed in my studies. “I admit I’m curious to talk to her, but it is the privilege of the sacred draak to hold her silence.”

  I fought the urge to roll my eyes.
>
  “Why isn’t it the privilege of the sacred draak to get proper tasty fish?” Karalti sniffed my barely-touched bagel for the fifteenth time. “This stuff is weird. Why does it smell burned?”

  “It’s smoked salmon.” I wasn’t a big fan of it myself – I liked my seafood killed at the table and grilled while it was still twitching. “Just calm the fuck down until this meal is over and done with. You can hunt later.”

  “Can you ask the serving man to bring me some proper fish?” Karalti reached up with an idle claw, and began to slowly bat an expensive-looking porcelain dish toward the edge of the table. I elbowed her again.

  “Ask him yourself. I’m not your fish-bitch.”

  There was a knock on the door at the other end of the richly appointed war room, and all heads turned as Garen the Kingsguard pushed it open and clanked his way across to us. He marched up close and bent down to whisper in Andrik’s ear. The Volod nodded.

  “Thank you. Please watch the door,” Andrik said.

  Ur Garen saluted and stalked off, his black cloak snapping out behind him.

  The Volod’s handsome face twisted into a scowl. “That was an update on the Slayer’s accomplice, that apprentice you told us about. Unfortunately, she seems to have escaped. But it is no matter. The Tanner’s District is to be closed. My soldiers will ensure she does not escape the ghetto, and I have no doubt the fugitive shall be apprehended once her fellow Mercurions start feeling the pinch in their purses.”

  The wry humor in Suri’s eyes faded. I clamped my own poker face on good and tight.

  “I confess that, on the ride back, I was considering what to do about this mess.” The Volod waved a hand toward the huge map of Taltos on the wall facing me. “These murders are gathering into a dark picture. A Mercurion assassin linked to the court, the intensely personal nature of the theft of my Corvinus Rubies, the mass attack on you, the dragon, and Suri in the middle of the street... I am beginning to suspect that we are not dealing with a single assassin. I believe we are being targeted by a terrorist cell. A Mercurion terrorist cell.”

  “The attack on us by Ilia doesn’t have anything to do with the murders,” I said. “The Knights of Saint Grigori have been trying to get their hands on Karalti ever since we left the Eyrie.”