Darkblade Guardian

by Andy Peloquin

  The Hidden Circle had helped him discover the temples of Kara-ket, where he’d hunted the Sage and the Warmaster. They knew things that few others in the world did, or should.

  If anyone can point me in the right direction, it will be them.

  And, thanks to his partnership with Graeme, he knew just how to find them.

  * * *

  “Good evening, Liak.”

  The Hunter stifled a grin at the man’s startled surprise; the sight more than made up for the foul, suffocating reek of wood ash, potash, and tannins—the chemicals used to treat leather—that covered the noxious aromas of the concoctions brewed by the secret alchemists.

  “W-Who the bloody hell are you?” Liak pushed his horn-rimmed spectacles up his hooked nose and squinted up at the Hunter. “How did you get in here?”

  The alchemist’s shop was the exact opposite of Graeme’s Voramian establishment. Neat to the point of compulsion, not a speck of dust on any of the vials lining his shelf. The sign outside proclaimed him to be “Brewster Amos, Master of Elixirs”, though Graeme had given the Hunter Liak’s true name in case he’d need the Hidden Circle’s assistance.

  “I am the Hunter of Voramis. I believe we have a mutual acquaintance. Graeme of The Angry Goblin Bookstore.”

  Liak’s face went white at the Hunter’s name, then purple at the mention of Graeme. “That fat bastard betrayed me? The Hidden Circle will—”

  “Do nothing.” The Hunter fixed him with a stern glare. “The information I have delivered to the Hidden Circle has earned me their full cooperation.” He pulled out a small silver coin, which depicted three interlocking rings—the symbol of the Hidden Circle.

  Liak’s eyes narrowed as he squinted down at the coin, then up at the Hunter. “Hmmm.” He pursed his lips. “Curious, yet not unheard of. Though I must admit interest in the story behind how you came by that token.”

  “That’s for Graeme to tell you, or not.” The Hunter shrugged. “As for me, I’ve come for answers that I believe you are best-suited to answer.”

  “And what, pray tell, do you seek?” Liak leaned back in his chair. His spectacles made his eyes appear even larger, more owlish.

  The Hunter folded his arms. “What do you know of these murders?”

  “Which?” Liak frowned. “So many people die in Praamis every day, it is hard to keep track of them all.”

  “Save your clever charm for someone who will appreciate it,” the Hunter growled. “You know precisely which murders I’m talking about.”

  Liak sighed, removed his spectacles, and rubbed his eyes. “Truly vicious, these killings. Men, women, even children now.”

  “One of Lady Chasteyn’s Bluejackets among them.”

  Liak nodded. “News of that reached me this morning.”

  “Did you hear about another body this evening?” the Hunter asked.

  This piqued Liak’s interest. “Another body? A second Bluejacket?”

  “No.” The Hunter shook his head. “Or, at least there were no indications that she was one of the orphans from the House of Mercy.”

  “She?” Liak took up a quill and scribbled something onto a piece of parchment. “Where was the body found?”

  “In an alley near Old Town Market.”

  Liak finished writing with a flourish and blew on the parchment to dry the ink. The Hunter didn’t know what the man had written down, but over the last few years with Graeme, he’d been amazed by what the Hidden Circle could do with information others would discard or consider useless.

  “How many bodies have been dropped in all?” Graeme’s reports had mentioned three, but they’d been written ten days earlier before the Hunter left Voramis.

  Liak fumbled among the papers scattered across his desk, found one, and held it up to his face. “Thirteen, in total. The Praamian Guards found the bodies of four men, two women, including a prostitute from The Gilded Chateau, and until this morning, just one child.” He added a short note to the bottom of the parchment. “Add the Bluejacket and the second body you found, plus the bodies discovered in the Field of Mercy—”

  “Wait, there were bodies found in the Field of Mercy?” The Hunter narrowed his eyes.

  The Field of Mercy was a vast, empty field that bordered the eastern edge of Watcher’s Square, the broad plaza in front of the Royal Palace of Praamis. A hundred paces wide and forty across, its innocuous appearance hid treacherous quicksand that had claimed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of criminals. And now, it seems murder victims.

  Liak pursed his lips. “They were discovered by…a third party who brought them to our attention. We took care of the evidence before the Praamian Guard learned of them.” He fixed the Hunter with a curious gaze. “All were children, roughly of an age with the Bluejacket.”

  The Hunter’s blood ran cold. Five more children?

  “Curiously enough,” Liak continued, “none bore that strange symbol present on the other bodies. A bastardization of a Serenii rune, I believe, though I have little familiarity with that ancient language.”

  “What if there are actually two killers?” The fact that more bodies had turned up without the symbol carved into their flesh lent credence to his theory. “Only one of them is leaving those marks, and the other is…” He trailed off, uncertain of how the other murderer was killing their victims.

  “An intriguing theory.” Liak frowned and scratched at a drooping ear lobe. “That would explain the two poisons used.”

  “Two poisons?” The Hunter’s eyebrows shot up.

  Liak consulted his paper again. “Night Petal and Flaming Tansy. Both rare poisons, neither of which should be available here in Praamis. Flaming Tansy comes from Fehl, across the Frozen Sea. Night Petal, however, grows in abundance in the south of Einan, in the city of Shalandra.”

  The Hunter had encountered Flaming Tansy once, long ago, when he pursued a target across the sea to Fehl. He’d taken far longer to shake off its potent effects than most of the venoms and poisons he’d faced—though that had been before he knew the truth of his demonic heritage or his healing abilities. Night Petal was unfamiliar to him, though to be fair, his knowledge of poisons was far less extensive than Graeme’s.

  He pondered the revelation. Two poisons might confirm two killers!

  “Shalandra, interesting.” Liak’s voice turned musing, and he turned his gaze up to the Hunter. “And this second body you found, this young girl, you are certain she was not one of Lady Chasteyn’s Bluejackets?”

  “The killer dumped her with no clothing, so I cannot be certain.” The Hunter narrowed his eyes. “Why do you ask?”

  Liak tapped the quill against his lips, splattering ink on his hand and neck. “Because one dead Bluejacket is simply foul play, but two could be a pattern. One that points in the direction of Baronet Wyvern.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Darreth rushed over and slapped the parchment down on Ilanna’s desk. “Look.”

  The parchment bore twenty or more depictions of the symbol, drawn by Darreth’s precise hand. Yet he pointed to two symbols at the upper right hand corner. It looked as if he’d deconstructed the mark, separating it into the strange moon-and-star image and the circle-and-line exterior.

  Words poured from Darreth’s mouth in an excited rush. “I was so focused on seeing it as a whole, but when I did this—” He pointed to a half-drawn symbol on one side of the parchment. “—that’s when I realized that what I thought was one symbol was actually two.”

  Ilanna stared down at the two symbols Darreth had drawn side by side. She could see how they would interlock to form the strange mark carved into the murder victims’ chests.

  “What do they mean?” she asked. “The two symbols.”

  “Ah, that is the fascinating part!” Darreth raced from the room and came back a moment later with a book clasped in his hands. Though the book was badly burned, its metal binding twisted and warped, Ilanna recognized the volume even without opening it and reading the words written on the stiff, age
-yellowed pages. The sight brought back fond memories of the woman that had owned it—the tiny, bespectacled Journeyman Donneh had embodied the word “quirky”—and sorrow at her passing.

  Darreth set the book on the table. “I found this among Journeyman Donneh’s belongings after her death. Master Scorpion immediately set Acaria and Orach to copying down anything that could be salvaged. They are the only ones that can read the Secret Keeper script.”

  Ilanna remembered Journeyman Donneh saying the book had been stolen from the Temple of Whispers decades earlier. The Secret Keepers’ volume contained treasured information that the priests of the Mistress would kill to keep secret.

  “In the course of her work, Acaria came across this.” Darreth flipped to a section near the back of the book. “Once she had finished copying the pages, she brought it to me, knowing my love of such things.”

  Ilanna stared down at the writing on the page. There were two distinct scripts, equally illegible to her: the larger bore a strong resemblance to the symbols carved into the murder victims’ chests, while the other, smaller script, written into the margins like notes, looked a lot like the runes she’d seen when she snuck into the Temple of Whispers in Voramis.

  “From what Acaria has been able to decipher, this was written by a Secret Keeper by the name of Suroth.” Excitement elevated Darreth’s voice to a higher pitch. “This Suroth dedicated his life to the study of the ancient Serenii, everything from their architecture to their alchemical creations to their script.”

  The Serenii, an ancient long-gone race of beings, had possessed knowledge and technology that far exceeded the most advanced creations today. They had constructed breathtaking monuments like the Black Spire, the impossibly tall tower at the heart of Old Praamis, and their knowledge of alchemy had led to the creation of Derelana’s Lance and Kharna’s Breath, the two alchemical concoctions that had contributed to the success of the Lord Auslan heist.

  Darreth tapped a slim finger against a rune that was identical to the horseshoe-shaped half of the deconstructed symbol. “According to this Secret Keeper Suroth, this marking refers to the concept of death. But not death as the end of all things, but as a gateway to a new life, a rebirth as it were.”

  “And the other symbol?” Ilanna asked. She scanned the page but could find nothing that resembled the crescent moon and star depiction.

  Darreth turned a couple of pages, nearly ripping the burned parchment in his excitement. “Here!” He pointed to a symbol that was an exact match. “This symbol means ‘world beyond’.”

  “World beyond?” Ilanna cocked an eyebrow.

  Darreth nodded. “Some philosophers believe that there are other worlds like ours, though they tend to dwell more on the spiritual and moral ramifications of such alternate realities rather than delving into the science of how such a thing could be possible. Similar to how it is believed the demons came from multiple hells—the fiery hell, frozen hell, barren hell, and so on.”

  Ilanna forced herself to keep listening; Darreth might take a long time to get to his point, but when he did, he usually provided something of real value.

  “However, I believe the two symbols combined have a far less esoteric significance.” Darreth looked up at her with a grin. “When you combine them, what do you get?”

  “Death and rebirth, a world beyond.” Ilanna frowned. “Wait, you mean like the Sleepless Lands?”

  Darreth nodded. “Precisely!”

  “What are the Sleepless Lands?” Ria put in from beside Ilanna.

  Ilanna’s brow furrowed. “Did they not teach you about them in Ghandia?”

  “No,” Ria said.

  “The Sleepless Lands is the name given to the realm of the Long Keeper,” Darreth explained. “When we pass from this world into his eternal embrace, we are sent to the Sleepless Lands, a realm of unparalleled beauty and joy. There, we no longer require sleep, but remain awake forever to enjoy the splendor of this paradise.”

  “Interesting.” Ria pursed her lips. “My people tell of a similar place—Pharadesi—where the spirits of our loved ones await us. But, unlike your Sleepless Lands, we believe the spirits can still speak with us from Pharadesi, offer us their wisdom and guidance.”

  “Fascinating.” Darreth beamed. “I must sit down with you and write down all of the knowledge of your people. That I have not done so yet, after all your years with us, is an utter transgression on my part. I feel an utter fool for having failed to add the knowledge of your people to ours.”

  Ria nodded. “I will make time.”

  “That’s well and all,” Ilanna cut in. “But why does this symbol and its relation to the Sleepless Lands have anything to do with murders?”

  “Ah, that is where things turn even more interesting.” Darreth snapped the book shut and perched on the edge of one of the chairs before the desk. “While I, personally, have never had the good fortune to travel outside our city, one of my fellow Scorpions took it upon himself to take the pilgrim’s road to Shalandra. To learn more about the City of the Dead, and to study the myriad flora and fauna that grows there.”

  Ilanna ground her teeth as Darreth went off on a tangent about the exotic flowers that grew along the clifftops overlooking the tombs of Shalandra. “Focus, Darreth!” she said finally.

  “Er, of course.” Darreth adjusted his spectacles and took a deep breath. “One of the flowers my fellow Scorpion found along his journeys was a potent one, with many strange and unusual properties. The people of Shalandra called it Keeper’s Bloom, but for the rest of Einan, it is known as Night Petal.”

  The name sent a jolt down Ilanna’s spine, and she straightened. “The second poison!”

  “Precisely.” Darreth nodded. “Night Petal grows in abundance in the rocky mountain soil, and it is harvested by the people of Shalandra for a deep purple dye, to smoke like tabacc leaf, and for many more purposes. However, it is also used by the Keeper’s Priests in their rituals.”

  “Keeper’s Priests?” Ilanna’s brow furrowed. Twelve of the thirteen gods had their own priesthood, but no sane Einari would worship the Long Keeper. Attracting the attention of the sleepless god of death would only end in misery. “You’re telling me there’s a priesthood dedicated to serving the Long Keeper?”

  “Shalandra is unique in its worship of the Long Keeper above the Master and the other gods,” Darreth explained. “In fact, the priests of the Keeper number among the most influential in Shalandra. The clerics on the Keeper’s Council and the Necroseti all but rule the city—its Pharus is little more than a figurehead.”

  “So a Shalandran is killing people in Praamis?” Ilanna asked, confused.

  “Yes and no.” Darreth turned both palms upward. “The Night Petal poison comes from Shalandra, but it is very possible that it was simply brought from the City of the Dead to Praamis, where it is being used by one of our own people.”

  Ria’s brow furrowed. “Is travel between the two cities common?”

  “No!” Triumph brightened Darreth’s expression. “In fact, to my knowledge, there is only one man in all of Praamis that has regular dealings with the Shalandrans.”

  A memory flashed through Ilanna’s mind, and immediately she knew who Darreth referred to. “Baronet Wyvern!”

  “Precisely.” Darreth nodded. “The Baronet’s fortune is largely derived from his trade with the Shalandrans. The fact that the city is built on a mountain means they have little arable farmland to grow crops and raise herds to—”

  “Did you say on a mountain?” Ria cut in. “The City of the Dead on a mountain?”

  Darreth nodded. “Yes. Why?”

  Ilanna studied Ria. The woman’s expression had turned strange, her face paler than Ilanna had ever seen it.

  “I-It’s nothing.” Ria gave a dismissive wave. “Go on.”

  Darreth cleared his throat. “As I was saying, Baronet Wyvern does a great deal of business with the Shalandrans, trading food supplies for access to shalanite and what little Shalandran steel he is pe
rmitted to access.”

  Ilanna had heard of these things. Shalanite was a mineral found exclusively in Alshuruq, the mountain into which the city of Shalandra had been built. The stone had begun to replace marble as the decorative stone of choice for the nobility, and stonemasons prized it for its veneer, hardness, and uniformity when cut. Shalanite was also a critical component required for the production of Shalandran steel, the best-quality steel on all of Einan—a rival even for the Secret Keeper-forged Odarian steel. Shalandra only allowed a trickle of the steel to be used in trade, making it even more valuable and desirable. The man who handled the export of these two commodities ought to be rich, indeed.

  “The Baronet makes trips to Shalandra two or three times a year,” Darreth continued. “And he returned from his last journey just over a month ago.”

  “A month ago,” Ilanna echoed. “Just a few days before the first body turned up dead.”

  “Could it be a coincidence?” Darreth shook his head. “I’m not inclined to believe so. And, when you factor in this, I believe you will come to realize the truth.”

  Ilanna studied the seven dots Darreth had drawn on the parchment. “That’s the pattern that was branded onto the victims’ foreheads.”

  “Yes. But the significance isn’t in the dots or the pattern, but in the number.” He beamed. “Seven, like the seven faces of the Long Keeper.”

  “Seven faces?” Ilanna wrinkled her nose. “I’ve never heard of that.”

  “Another strange Shalandran belief.” Darreth gave her a knowing smile. “Mercy, justice, vengeance, sorrow, joy, eternity, and change. According to my fellow Scorpion, many Shalandrans tattoo these seven dots on their bodies as a sign of reverence to their god.”

  Ilanna’s eyes narrowed. She’d seen a tattoo like that, or at least a fragment. But where? Realization hit her. On Baronet Wyvern’s back.