The Guild of the Cowry Catchers, Book 1: Embers, Deluxe Illustrated Edition

by Abigail Hilton

  “He disappeared on Maijha Minor. He was part of a registered hunting party, so no investigation was made.”

  Gerard snorted. “Was he really hunting, or was he looking for something?”

  Marlo shrugged. “Montpir was a very private person. He did like to hunt. His family was from Maijha Major.”

  Gerard nodded and dismissed his new secretary again. He sat down at the desk and began sorting through the stacks of paper.

  * * * *

  By the time Gerard returned to his room at the inn, it was well past midnight. Thessalyn had waited for him. She was sitting beside the fire in the peculiar stillness that came over her when she was composing music in her head. Her face cleared as he entered.

  “You shouldn’t have waited up,” he said.

  “I’m a minstrel. We’re supposed to be able to harp all night.”

  Gerard stripped off his coat, glad that she could not see the bloodstains. “I’ve been killing shavier. A couple of grishnards, too.”

  Thessalyn’s white eyes grew luminous and sad. “You saved them from Lamire, then?”

  Gerard sighed. She knew him too well. “I doubt that’s how they saw it.”

  “They will see everything on the Shores Beyond the World, and they will understand.”

  Gerard shook his head. “I’m not concerned with the Shores Beyond the World just now, only with Maijha Minor and my last predecessor in the Police, Montpir. He disappeared there. I think he was looking for Sky Town.”

  Thessalyn strummed her harp thoughtfully. “So you really think Sky Town exists?”

  Gerard shrugged. “The Priestess seems to think so. Montpir did, too, I think.” Gerard told her about Marlo Snale and what he’d said. He also mentioned Silveo’s parting words.

  Thessalyn shook her head. “What is wrong with him? Doesn’t he see that you’re both on the same side?”

  Gerard hesitated. He’d never told Thessalyn all of the rumors about Silveo. “They say he clawed his way up from the slums around Slag on Sern.” He watched Thessalyn’s face. The harbor town of Slag was perhaps the roughest and ugliest in Wefrivain. The town had a reputation for brothels that catered to all tastes, and foxlings were especially prized because of their fine features and child-like proportions. Gerard would have pitied any such creature, except that Silveo had a way of dissipating pity as a summer sun dissipates dew. In Gerard’s experience, Silveo would have been more likely to sell such children than to have been one.

  Thessalyn was quiet a moment. “Poor thing.”

  Gerard made a face. “No one can say whether it’s true, as he seems to have killed nearly every shelt who knew him as a child.” He hesitated. “However, it might explain his taste in clothes.”

  “Gerard!”

  “He is cruel, Thessalyn. He hasn’t the honor of a mud leech.”

  “And you are intimidating, especially to someone like that.”

  Gerard drew a hand across his eyes. “Alsair can talk of nothing but eviscerating him since that business with the Foam. I don’t want to talk anymore about Silveo Lamire.”

  She smiled. “Then let’s not. Judging from what Marlo Snale had to say, you’ve taken on a dangerous job, love.”

  “Frightened for me?”

  Thessalyn stood and walked to him, fearless now that she’d memorized the layout of the room. Gerard took her in his arms. “My dear,” she said, “you could vanquish hydras and cross the deserts of fire.”

  Her boundless optimism was one of the many things he loved about her. “You have more faith in me than I do.” Gerard started to kiss her.

  “I want to hear about the Police,” said Thessalyn. “What’s got you so curious about Montpir and Maijha Minor?”

  They curled up on the bed, and he told her about the office and the stacks of paper. “Something wasn’t right with that office,” said Gerard. “Every document I found was dated at least three red months ago. Montpir only disappeared last month. Judging by what I saw, he kept meticulous records. I even found evidence of a filing system, but nothing was in order.”

  “You think someone searched the office?” asked Thessalyn.

  “Yes,” said Gerard. “I think someone stole a lot of paperwork. They hoped I’d confuse ransacked with messy. I went through the fireplace, and I think a lot of paper was burned there recently. I found a bit that had fallen under the grate, a list.” Gerard took the charred fragment out of his pocket and read it to her.

  Sky Town

  Misnomer?

  Tea cups—tea leaves?

  Who is Gwain? At the center of the web

  Cowry Catchers—the winged wolves

  Maijha Minor

  The diving spiders

  Thessalyn grinned. “Cryptic!” Gerard could tell that her minstrel’s mind was already making poetry or prophesy of it.

  “Yes,” he said, “but that list meant something to Montpir, and I’m going to find out what.”

  Chapter 5. A Traitor and A Child

  Maijha Minor is home to all kinds of creatures that have been eradicated from most other parts of Wefrivain. The exact nature and habits of these creatures are kept secret by the gamekeepers of the island in order to preserve the mystery of the place. The diving spiders are one of the more feared elements of Maijha Minor. They can grow a quarter the size of the average griffin, and they make their homes in coral reefs. The kings of Maijha Major claim that the spiders prevent the islands’ inhabitants from escaping by sea (small boats are easy prey in the spider-infested reefs). Air traffic is forbidden and monitored from the watchtowers around the island. The only safe and legal approach is overland from Maijha Major during low tide. The journey requires a skillful sand pilot with knowledge of the tidal flats. Ironically, many of these sand pilots are fauns from Maijha Minor, who receive a level of protection and trade goods for their services.

  —Gwain, The Truth About Wyverns

  Gerard arrived at his office early the next morning. A new guard stood at the dungeon entrance. At the desk in the anteroom in front of his office, an older shelt, whom he took to be a warden, was sleeping. Gerard pretended not to notice. “I want you to bring the prisoners to me one by one,” he began in a loud voice. The warden jerked awake and blinked up at him. Gerard was still talking. “But first, send someone out to get hot food—something that smells good, something a faun would eat.” He looked down at his officer’s bewildered expression. “That means no faun meat,” he said in case it wasn’t clear.

  “Prisoners?” repeated the warden. Gerard could smell alcohol on his breath.

  “Yes! Prisoners! The ones who arrived yesterday. Their cell is a bloody mess. I ought to know; I made it. Get food, get prisoners. Can you handle that?”

  In spite of appearances to the contrary, the officer had the good sense to nod and lurch to his feet. Gerard strode past him into his office. I was here late last night. They probably didn’t expect me this morning.

  He sat down to another stack of papers—this one a catalogue of shelts the Police had interrogated six years ago. These were the Police of Gerard’s memory—the ugly stories he’d heard growing up. They don’t seem to have been as active in recent years. Is it because they had more humane captains? Or have the constant assassinations been slowing them down? He suspected the latter.

  Some time later, one of the younger guards came in with a tray of steaming meat pastries from a street vendor. Gerard thought at least one of the little pies looked suspicious. He ate that one, judged the rest suitable, and sent the guard for the first prisoner. They had languished all night in the dark without food or water, with the bodies and blood of their comrades all around them. They’d been in the hold of a ship for four days before that, during which time they’d had nothing but a little water. They ought to be hungry enough and frightened enough by now.

  The first prisoner they brought him was the little gazumelle. His hands had been tied, which annoyed Gerard. Do they think I can’t protect myself from a starving, unarmed faun, barely grown, and
half my size? He had straightened the office, put all the loose paper in drawers. The place was clean and well lit, and it smelled pleasantly of food.

  “Sit,” he commanded the faun. The chair in front of the desk was small, uncomfortable, and plain, while the desk chair was an angular throne of leather and blocky wood. Gerard had no doubt it had been designed to intimidate. However, he preferred to stand. He loomed over the unfortunate gazumelle, whom he guessed to be no older than fourteen. “What is your name?”

  The faun said nothing. He had the dark hair and olive skin of his race. He was wearing nothing but a white linen shirt, much stained. His fur, too, was matted with half-dried blood. He stared straight ahead, trembling like a rabbit in the claws of a hawk. He was so bony that Gerard wondered whether he’d been getting enough to eat even before he was captured.

  “You have a choice,” said Gerard quietly. “You can eat some food, talk to me, and leave here alive. Or you can refuse to talk to me, and I’ll give you to my officers and their griffins.” Griffins had a cat-like love of sport. The gazumelle shuddered. Gerard thought, belatedly, that he should have brought Alsair along for this exercise. “Or perhaps the temple is running short of sacrifices this month,” he continued. “The gods seem to have an insatiable appetite for tender young things. They love variety, and they can’t have enjoyed many of your kind.” The faun leaned forward suddenly and retched. He had nothing but bile in his stomach, and the spasms wracked his small body like a hand wringing out a rag. Tears of pain and terror stood in the corners of his eyes against his long lashes.

  Gerard didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone so frightened, and the sight made him feel ill. He walked around behind the chair, so that the prisoner could not see his face. He leaned close to the faun’s quivering ear and put claws into his voice. “My point is: once you leave my office, your fate is sealed. If you want to live, now is the time to tell me.”

  “I don’t know!” wailed the faun, his voice breaking.

  “You don’t know your name?”

  “I don’t know where Sky Town is,” whispered the gazumelle wretchedly. “I’ve never been there. They never told me. I only worked on a ship. That’s all. I only worked on a ship.” He was sobbing now.

  Gerard wanted to put an arm around his shoulders and give him a meat pie. Instead, he said, “I haven’t asked you where Sky Town is. I repeat: what is your name? I already know the answers to some of my questions, so you had better not lie. The Police have many resources.” In truth, he had no idea of the answers to any of his questions, but he’d seen his father use this technique with diplomats, often to good effect.

  “My name is Paiter,” said the gazumelle faintly.

  Gerard cut off a small wedge of one of the pastries and gave it to him. The faun devoured it, hiccupping through his tears. His fingers were clumsy, and Gerard saw that his wrists had been tied tightly enough to restrict circulation. He resisted the urge to cut them loose.

  “How old are you? How long did you work on the ship? Who ran it?”

  Paiter was twelve. (So, thought Gerard, I have stooped to tormenting children.) He had worked on the ship for two years. He had been born on Maijha Minor, and the pirates had offered him an opportunity to escape the fate of all but the craftiest fauns on that island. “It is forbidden to kill fauns under ten,” he explained. “But most are killed by a hunting party before they reach thirty. My mother wanted me to join the pirates. She wanted me to live.”

  So when he turned ten, Paiter was bundled off in the dark to join a pirate ship. Gerard interrupted him, “Which side of the island did you sail from?” The waters around Maijha Minor were considered all but un-navigable, due to the combination of reef, diving spiders, and rough sea.

  Paiter shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t understand how we got there.” He had been taken into a tunnel, in which he and several other fauns traveled for what seemed like more than a day. They had surfaced in a place that he did not recognize, walked to a beach he did not know, and found a rowboat waiting to take them to a ship—the pirate ship, Foam, which Gerard had helped to capture. In the next two years, the ship had taken seven prizes—four merchant vessels and three Temple treasure ships laden with offerings for Lecklock. “The pirates target Temple ships,” said Paiter. “We met many merchant ships that we left alone. I never learned how the captain decided which to attack and which to let go.”

  The captain was a shavier faun, and Paiter had never heard him called anything except “Captain.” Gerard had killed this person himself, and he remembered the fight on deck with the ship pitching and burning all around them. Samarin Mel had been his second in command.

  Gerard questioned Paiter closely about the tunnel and the beach from which he sailed, but Paiter had nothing to add, although he tried. “No light was permitted in the tunnel. It was tall enough for us to stand, and we walked very rapidly for a long time.”

  Could the fauns of Maijha Minor have dug a tunnel to another island? It seemed utterly fantastic. Or did they sail from some secret cove on Maijha Minor? Could the tunnel have been a ruse to impress and confuse recruits in case they were ever caught? He even wondered whether the entire story were a fabrication, memorized for such an occasion. He couldn’t bring himself to believe it, though. The young gazumelle’s desperate, frightened eyes and babble of information seemed authentic.

  Throughout the tale, Gerard handed him pieces of pastry, and at one point he gave him a large mug of water, which the faun drank greedily. At last, Gerard cut his hands free. When Paiter had told everything and was beginning to repeat himself, Gerard went to the door and told the guard outside to bring a tunic and pants. “I don’t care where you get them,” he said in response to the guard’s question. “If we don’t have any here, buy them on the street. Give them to this prisoner, and put him in a cell by himself. Give him a meal and all the water he can drink, and when it’s full dark, release him.”

  Gerard wasn’t sure where Paiter would go or how he would get there. That wasn’t Gerard’s problem, but releasing him in the daylight in Lecklock would be cruel. Gerard would at least give him the small comfort of darkness to find his way to safety.

  He glanced over the tray of food. If they all talk to me at this rate, I’ll have to send for more. However, his worry proved premature. The next prisoner was a shavier of perhaps twenty-five—Gerard’s own age. He had the marble stare of a shelt who had already resigned himself to die. No amount of threats or promises could induce him to utter a word. At last, Gerard walked around behind the chair, took the faun’s head quickly in his hands and broke his neck with one snap. He’d seen cooks on Holovarus do this to fauns intended for the pots. It was harder than it looked. In spite of his threats, Gerard had no real intention of giving any of the prisoners to griffins or wyverns.

  Gerard had no better luck with any of the next four. They have been well-schooled, he thought, and found that he respected them immensely.

  The sixth was a shavier faun with shifty eyes and twitching fingers. Gerard disliked him at once, but the faun clearly had no intention of dying. “What will you give me for what I know?” he asked as soon as they were alone.

  Gerard offered him the same thing he’d offered the others. The faun shook his head. “That’s not good enough. The Resistance will kill me if your own shelts don’t.”

  Gerard was surprised. “If you tell me what you know, my shelts, at least, will not kill you.”

  The faun looked at him narrowly. “You’re new at this.”

  You’re the first to notice. “You think so?”

  “Let me tell you something you may not know about the Police, Captain. They never let anyone go. Accidents happen to shelts they release.”

  Gerard decided to try a new tack. “You’re right. I am new. I do things differently.”

  The faun looked almost sorry for him. “You may want to, but you won’t. The Police are controlled by more powerful forces than you. Now, I repeat: I want protection.”

  Ge
rard thought for a moment. “I will arm you before I release you, and I will give you sufficient cowries to buy passage off Lecklock.”

  The faun looked surprised.

  He wasn’t expecting me to acquiesce so quickly or so completely, thought Gerard. I’ve already given more than he had any right to expect.

  “I want an armed escort,” shot the faun. “I want a signed document from you.”

  Gerard shook his head.

  The prisoner argued weakly for a little longer, but it was already clear that he intended to talk. “We both know I’m not going to tell you my real name,” he said at last, “so why bother making one up? I’m a smuggler. I have many clients, but the Resistance was never one of them until recently. They wanted me to transport certain materials to and from Sern and Haplag.”

  “Materials?” echoed Gerard.

  The smuggler shrugged. “Passengers, sometimes, but also things in boxes. I never knew what they were. I never asked. I never went to the Great Islands, just the smaller holdings, mostly numeraries.”

  Gerard nodded. Tiny islands with no appreciable grishnard population sometimes had no names, only numbers. They were called numeraries. “So far, you’re not telling me anything worth the price I’m paying.”

  The smuggler held up a hand. “It’s true that I don’t know where Sky Town is or even if it exists. I don’t have a list of names to give you or a secret code or maps. However, I do have one name, and it’s an important one: Gwain.”

  Gerard leaned forward. At the center of the web.

  The smuggler grinned. “I see you’ve heard of him.”

  “Perhaps,” said Gerard. “Continue.”

  “I don’t know whether he’s their leader,” said the faun, “but I think he might be. I transported him once. I saw him.”

  Gerard looked skeptical. “The Resistance is secretive. Why should I imagine they introduced you to this person?” Trustworthy individual that you so obviously are.

  “Oh, they didn’t introduce us,” said the smuggler. “I don’t think I was intended to see him, but the passage was rough and longer than expected. He came on deck rather sick, and I got a look at him. He’s a shavier faun about my height with light brown hair, brownish eyes, and gray-blue feathers.”