by Cory Herndon
Bek and Daskos would have their hands full for most of the day, with another in a seemingly endless series of predecamillennial goblin fertility festivals headed into their stretch. Goblin festivals—and Kos could swear they’d thrown a different one every week for the last year—drew tribes from all over the plane and from many different guilds, not all of which celebrated in the same law-abiding way. More than half of the recent festivals had ended in minor rioting, in fact. Goblin festivals were the debauched mirrors of the holy convocation that would illuminate the Center of Ravnica in just a few days.
As an afterthought, he ordered Karlaus and Migellic to pick a couple of the new recruits to accompany the lieutenants on the festival run and assigned Feather to check in with them when she was finished testifying in the Gullmott case.
In any other year, that would have probably been the end of it, and everyone else would be on standard patrol, but this was not any other year. This was 9999 Z.C., and in four days, the city would be celebrating ten thousand years of relative peace and prosperity with a planewide blessing—if you believed in that sort of thing—centered on Vitu Ghazi, the Unity Tree and center of Selesnyan power. Perhaps that was why half of the city seemed determined to get in a lifetime of sinning in that time.
Lieutenants Vlidok and Chiloscu had a kidnapping outside the northern border of the Rakdos Hellhole, one of the cult’s more prominent clusters of hovels and rat holes wedged between street level and Golgari-controlled Old Ravnica. Sergeant Tolgax already had a dogpack unit working the area sniffing out clues. Izigy and Wenc were hitting Centerfort archives for most of the day and hoped to have an arrest order for a local Orzhov influence peddler by tomorrow afternoon. Stanslov had a morning meeting with the supervisor of the psychometry lab, following up on a missing shipment of teardrops that had probably already spread through the black market. The lost shipment wasn’t enough to cause any shortages yet, but Stanslov said he had tracked a few other lost shipments meant for the Leaguehall infirmary to the same warehouse and planned on hitting that lead today. And so it went until there was only one order of business remaining. Kos slipped the spectacles from the end of his nose and tucked them away. No reading would be necessary for this.
“Finally, an acknowledgment. Sergeant Borca,” Kos said. Borca stood, beaming. Maybe a little public praise was all Borca needed to become a well-liked member of the Tenth. And maybe Kos was going to sprout wings and enter the roc races. The man had an uncanny ability to annoy most anyone, not just Kos. And Kos actually liked Borca.
“Be seated, Sergeant. You’re to begin lieutenant’s training with me today. Congratulations.”
“Thank you, K—sir,” Borca said as he bowed at the acknowledgment and sat.
“The rest of you, no such luck,” Kos said. “But just because I’ll be taking over Phaskin’s desk, don’t think I won’t make myself available to discuss promotions down at the Backwater. Your treat, of course.” He straightened to attention and nodded to the assembled wojeks. “Keep your eyes open, everyone. Dismissed.”
* * * * *
Kos and Borca had barely cleared the briefing room when a bellow from Phaskin stopped the pair in their tracks.
“Kos! Get over here!” Phaskin shouted over the morning din of activity in the booking lobby, the transit point where suspected violators entered the system in the Tenth section of the city. If they had been wrongly accused, they left the same way, and Kos could count the number of times he’d seen that on one hand. Usually, the lawbreakers spent a few hours in holding, were sent up the ladder to the Judges, and when found guilty were either executed or exiled, never to see the cacophonous circus that was booking ever again.
Wojeks, on the other hand, had to navigate the circus several times each day, and Kos waded through the criminals, ’jeks, clerks, and dozens of people who had apparently only shown up to scream random furious words. One could not enter or leave the Leaguehall without going through this area, and Kos suspected Phaskin had been waiting to ambush him. The wojek captain sat behind one of several desks that littered the lobby getting an earful from a tourist in silk robes. Kos remembered seeing the man in the crowd at the theater the day before. Phaskin looked relieved to see Kos, which could only mean the lieutenant was about to get a bit more of Phaskin’s workload shoveled onto his plate.
Phaskin spotted Kos and Borca and vigorously waved them over.
“What is it, Captain?” Kos asked over the noise.
“This is—What did you say your name was, sir?” Phaskin said.
“Wenvel Kolkin,” the tourist said. As Kos approached he could see the plump man was soaked in sweat. That or he’d gone for a swim in the river in his expensive clothes.
“Mr. Kolkin needs to report a possible violation. Might be a trade inference angle, I believe you said, sir?”
“Well, I—”
“Meanwhile, I’m due at an important conference with the brass,” Phaskin interrupted. “Take over here, Kos.”
“Getting fitted for your new dress reds, sir?” Borca asked.
“How did you—?” Phaskin said, then scowled when he realized he’d been baited. “Never mind what I’m doing, Sergeant. Kos, I need you to take over here.”
“I’m training a new lieutenant today,” Kos said. “Can’t anyone else—”
“Excuse me,” the tourist interrupted, “This is rather urgent.”
“And that’s why I’m handing you over to our top ’jek,” Phaskin said as he slipped out from behind the desk. “You’ll be in good hands, Mr. Kolkin.” Phaskin was through the crowded lobby and out the door before Kos thought to ask what exactly Mr. Kolkin’s complaint was.
Kos took a deep breath and settled into the chair behind the desk. “Sergeant Borca, take notes, would you?” Borca scowled but unfurled a piece of parchment and pulled a stylus from his pocket. “What seems to be the problem, sir? You don’t look like you’re from around here, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“I’m not,” Kolkin said. “We’re—That is, my wife and I—She’s left me, but I—”
“Let’s back up,” Kos said. “Your wife left you?”
“Why does everyone keep—No, she’s—She’s dead,” the tourist continued.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“I’m sorry too,” Kolkin said. “Yertrude was my—Excuse me.” The merchant pulled a bright purple handkerchief from his pocket, blew his nose, and dabbed at the tears rimming his eyes. “She was everything to me. But that’s only part of it. I never called it a trade violation, but I suppose that’s one way to—You’re the ’jek from the theater.”
“Yes, sir. I get around. So your wife—Did she die at theater? I’m not seeing the trade-violation angle my cap—”
A sudden, deafening banshee shriek pierced the muggy lobby, joined a second later by terrified screams from the civilians packed into the area. The sound came from a silvery-white ghost shaped like a twisted, broken human woman who appeared amid the crowd, sending wojeks and suspects alike fleeing in all directions. Somewhere, a guard shouted “’Seeker! We’ve got ’seeker!”
“She found me!” Wenvel Kolkin cried before he ducked around to hide behind the desk, wedging himself next to Borca.
“I take it this is the former Mrs. Kolkin?” Kos asked as he drew his pendrek. The tourist nodded, sending a spray of sour sweat flying. “I think I understand. Borca, keep an eye on him. Please remain where you are, Mr. Kolkin. I’m going to have some questions for you after this.”
“After what?” Kolkin cried.
Kos ignored him and turned to face the screaming ghost. It hovered roughly in the center of the open lobby surrounded by gawkers and uncertain guards. Kos was the nearest wojek officer, which made the ghost his problem. “If the bird lands on your shoulder. …” he muttered.
Woundseekers were not the most common apparition in Ravnica, a city with more than its share of literal and figurative ghosts. They could be among the most dangerous, though. Unlike normal specters that sometimes l
ingered after the death of an ordinary mortal, ’seekers were anger and vengeance given supernatural form—spirits taken before their time by violence.
This was one of the violent types, all right. The spectral horror that had been Yertrude Kolkin continued to scream until the sound formed a single word. “Weeeeeenveeeeelllllllll!”
“Mr. Kolkin, if I find out you’re responsible for your wife’s death …” Kos said while he maneuvered himself between the desk hiding the merchant and the oncoming ’seeker.
“No, I was—She disappeared, and when I found her she was—”
“Kos!” Borca shouted. “What are you doing?”
“What, you’ve never dealt with ’seeker before, Borca?” Kos said.
“It’s never come up,” the sergeant said.
“Watch and learn,” Kos replied. He reached to his belt, flipped open a flat pouch, and slipped a small steel mirror into the palm of his hand.
The wailing ghost was almost on top of him. “That’s it, Yertrude,” he said as calmly as he could. Right now the crowded lobby was frozen, watching what the crazy ’jek was going to try. If he gave them reason to panic, there might be a stampede. “Just a little closer. Need to make sure you get a good … look!” On the last word, Kos swung the mirror up directly before the translucent face of the angry spirit. The twin points of blue light that filled the empty black eye sockets flashed with recognition, and the constant wail died down to a soft moan and finally a quizzical hiss.
“Yes, it’s you, Yertrude,” Kos said gently, honest sympathy for the twisted thing bleeding into every word. It was important to speak the dead woman’s name, to remind her of who she had been. “I’m sorry. You can’t do anything more here, Yertrude. You don’t want to hurt anyone. You have to let go. Know that you will be avenged. Yertrude, I swear we will do everything we can to find out who did this to you.”
The ghost shimmered with uncertainty. “Go,” it whispered at last, a sound Kos heard more in his head than his ears.
“Yes, go!” the merchant shouted from his hiding place. “Stop following—”
“Mr. Kolkin, no, please don’t—”
“WEEEEENVEEEELLLLLL!”
The ’seeker’s surging anger sent a wave of invisible force over the surrounding crowd that knocked even Kos to one knee. “Damn it!” Kos swore. “Borca, get him away from here! Now!”
Yertrude’s ghost was having a full-on psychic breakdown. The last thing Kos needed was the Yertrude’s idiot husband getting in the way again and sending the ’seeker even further over the edge.
Kos tucked the mirror in his belt. That trick would only work once, and now that the ’seeker’s rage was at a fevered pitch, there was little he could do to resolve this peacefully. Puzzle-boxes were pointless, too. The ’seekers resisted the entrapment devices. There was only one thing to do now. Kos drew his pendrek once more and twisted the hilt until it clicked twice. The grip grew warm as mana charged into the internal wand filament at the center of the baton. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Kolkin,” he said. He aimed the end of the weapon at the center of the screaming specter and concentrated his willpower into the weapon.
“Vrazi,” Kos said.
The lethal mana buildup within the silver pendrek broke free in a bright golden flash and slammed into the ghost. The energy appeared to devour the specter from the inside out, like a paper doll held over an open candle. It only took a few seconds for the dead woman’s phantasmal form to burn away into a cloud of black smoke that hung heavy in the windless air.
The Selesnya Conclave held that the souls of the dead were meant to join together into something greater, the hive-consciousness of the dryads. The Golgari captured the ghosts of the dead and used necrotic energy to create the undead. Other guilds possessed varying degrees of these two belief systems for the most part, but the Boros—the guild of which the League was but a small part—was the only guild that regularly destroyed ghosts, burning them from the face Ravnica. Kos sometimes wondered if he would pay a price for utterly obliterating the remnants of a living soul when he himself died. At his age, that could be any time.
“Nothing to see here,” Kos said to the stunned crowd that stood around him like bettors at a ratclops pit. “Everything’s under control.” This was enough to spark an explosion of loud conversation as the assembled criminals, suspects, witnesses, and wojeks speculated about what, exactly, had just happened, whether it would happen again soon, and if it had been anyone they’d known.
Kos found Borca and Kolkin huddled on the far side of the desk where he’d left them. The lieutenant offered Kolkin a hand up, then indicated the chair behind the desk. “All right, Mr. Kolkin, why don’t you start over from the beginning?”
* * * * *
Wenvel Kolkin, it turned out, desperately wanted to find his wife’s killer—especially now that her ghost wasn’t trying to swallow his soul—but he was useless as a witness. Had the merchant been able to describe a suspect, someone who might have murdered Yertrude and been planning to kill again, that would have been one thing. Kolkin, however, hadn’t even known his wife was dead until the ’seeker attacked him at the Tin Street Market. He’d been running from the ghost ever since.
There was little more Kos could do but explain to Kolkin that once committed, murder was not, technically, against the law in the City of Ravnica. Not unless the victim wore a ten-pointed star like the one on Kos’s chest. Even if Kolkin had killed his wife himself, which Kos didn’t believe after seeing that the ’seeker’s visible manifestation showed a massive neck injury, that would technically have been the couple’s business so long as no one else was hurt and the victim wasn’t a guild member prominent enough to warrant a trade-violation charge.
This, Kos believed, was just one of the reasons every guild on the plane kept at least a large embassy in the Center of Ravnica, if not their guild headquarters. Many guilds, especially the Orzhov and Golgari, viewed murder as business, and if the killer had the right paperwork there was no crime. And all of the guilds, even the Selesnya Conclave, had business with the Orzhov. Outside the city proper, the laws were different. The Guildpact’s magical influence was in force, but within those restrictions the patchwork of guild territories and free zones followed many different systems of justice. Kos sometimes wondered what it would be like to quit the wojeks and join up with the Hazda, the league of volunteers that served as the law out on the rest of the plane.
Then he would see something—a familiar merchant, a monument, a tower—and the thought of leaving became laughable. He hadn’t left in a 110 years and wasn’t about to now.
The Devkarin male kills. The Devkarin female makes death less than permanent. These are the gifts of our kind, and in that, we achieve balance.
—Matka Velika (8403–8674), from the Matka Scrolls
24 ZUUN 9999 Z.C., EARLY MORNING
Far below Agrus Kos’s feet, a centaur ran for his life. A pair of arrows protruded from his flank, and one hind leg dragged every couple of steps. He was old, even for a centaur—easily three hundred years if he was a day, swaybacked and piebald, with a long white beard and mane that whipped in the dank, subterranean air. He half trotted, half galloped down a narrow passage between two massive, crumbling stone buildings. He stopped, sniffed the air, and cast nervous glances at the open windows that watched him from every conceivable direction.
He was utterly lost.
The centaur wheezed and gasped, then coughed. The air was getting worse the closer he got to the belching smoke vents of the Hellhole, and his ancient lungs were already riddled with a half-dozen diseases. He dizzily glanced left, right, and back over his shoulder. He could see no sign of the pack of predators on his trail, and his sense of smell was more than useless. But he had heard something, to the rear, in the shadows of a structure steeped in the process of reclamation. Vines, moss, and fungus filled every crack and opening in the once-angular structure, which the centaur knew had been a residential hovel as recently as fifty years earlier. Now the Sister
s and their high Devkarin priestess, the matka Savra, reclaimed it for the two elite classes of the Golgari Guild, the Devkarin elves and the teratogens. The centaur belonged to neither of those classes, or even to the Golgari Guild. He’d simply gotten lost, as so many long-term visitors to Old Rav had become.
The centaur coughed again, this time spitting up blood.
Directly above him, something sniffed the air once. The old centaur looked up into a face wearing a skull-like mask over black, piercing eyes. The exposed mouth beneath the mask said, “Boo.”
The hunter, a pale elf, dropped from the ceiling onto the centaur’s sagging back. The hunter didn’t use an arrow or the long knife slung on his belt but instead wrapped his hands around his prey’s throat. The centaur let out a strangled wail and took off down one of the undercity’s hundreds of winding, perilous passages, vainly trying with fading strength to buck free of his unwanted passenger.
The hunter applied greater pressure with each passing second, and soon the old creature stumbled, tried to get up, and failed. The masked elf pressed his thumbs against the base of his prey’s skull and twisted, ending the centaur’s life with a single clean snap. He released it and let it flop onto one side, twitching, as he stepped off its back.
He stared into the cloudy, dead eyes of the centaur, considered closing them, then decided not to bother. The centaur would need them soon enough, if not for long.
The elf’s name was Jarad, and he was bored.
“Disappointing,” Jarad said. He walked around behind the centaur’s corpse and violently jerked the pair of arrows free. Blood spattered his forearms and bare chest. With the smooth efficiency of ritual, he wiped blood from each arrow once across either cheek, and used the razor-sharp edge of one arrowhead to slice the tip of his tongue. He tasted the mixture of his own blood and the centaur’s, savoring a brief moment of triumph after the lackluster kill. He then snapped each arrow cleanly in two and tossed them aside. Jarad never used the same arrow twice.
