Nights of Villjamur lotrs-1

by Mark Charan Newton

  Jeryd lay his dark-skinned hand on hers, and she felt peculiarly tender. 'You can trust me.' He walked to the door, locked it, then started a fire to get the room warm again. He pulled his chair around the desk so he was next to her, wanting her to know he was on her side. 'Tell me what's wrong. You said someone was after you?'

  She sobbed fearfully. 'I escaped him, at least for now.'

  'Who?' Jeryd tried to meet her eyes, but she kept looking away from him, to the floor, to the desk, to the walls.

  'Your "aide", Tryst.'

  Jeryd leaned back with a shocked frown. 'Go on.'

  She began to tell him everything that had transpired recently: how Tryst approached her, the drugs he used to subdue her, the beatings once the drugs wore off, her uncanny ability to bring to life creatures through her art, how Tryst had abused that secret by demanding a clone of Jeryd's wife so as to play a cruel trick on the investigator. And in the stunned silence you could hear the crack of wood splitting on the fire as it burned. 'He hated you to an extent. I think he just wanted to teach you a lesson for something. It was obvious you didn't know what he was up to, and since you seemed to be his enemy, I thought you could help.'

  His enemy? Jeryd thought morosely.

  And then, reluctantly, she confessed to the murders of the two councillors, thus revealing the key piece of information that Jeryd had suspected, but had no proof of – the diabolical plan devised by members of the Council itself to eliminate thousands of the refugees.

  About a million thoughts raced through Jeryd's mind. His world had suddenly become so much more confusing, so much more dangerous. He realized that Marysa hadn't actually cheated on him. It was this 'clone' that he had witnessed. Despite the surge of relief, in that moment the guilt of his subsequent actions became unbearable.

  'Investigator?' Tuya prompted.

  He faced her. 'Forgive me, Miss Daluud. You've given me such a huge quantity of information that not only affects myself, but this entire city, this Empire. But you say Tryst may be coming after you.'

  'Yes… he humiliated me and beat me.' Then she collapsed into sobbing, burying her head in her palms. It didn't seem natural for a woman previously radiating such confidence, such strength.

  Jeryd clasped her hands in his own. 'Tell me everything again – absolutely everything you remember.'

  The specific details regarding the actual slaughter of the refugees were limited, and Tuya could give only one other name at the centre of the conspiracy. Chancellor Urtica, it seemed, was setting the pace on this matter, although the actual means of achieving this remained uncertain. Jeryd realized he would have to alert others within the Inquisition – but only a select few he could trust. If this went to the top of the city's ruling hierarchy, who else might be involved? Could he risk informing his superiors? Or should he handle this on his own? Either way, what would be the consequences? Regarding Tuya herself, should he arrest her or let her free? Tryst would soon find her again, and Jeryd now saw his subordinate in a chilling new light. He realized that he would have to hide her away somewhere safe, for now. For her own good. But she has committed murder. Yet it seemed she had killed the councillors to prevent the slaughter of thousands of innocents. Sometimes this city was so sinister, so complicated, he wished he could leave it completely.

  He made up his mind. 'Don't worry about anything. For the moment, you'll be safe. I'll take care of that, but I'll need your help.'

  *

  Jeryd had decided to allow Tuya to stay at his house in the Kaiho district.

  Marysa was there still, thank Bohr, though Jeryd felt a pang of guilt every time she looked his way. She accepted Tuya's arrival without question, so he felt free to return to work.

  After spending much of the afternoon thinking about recent developments, Jeryd saw the figure of Tryst walking off through the winding stone corridors of the Inquisition headquarters, heading out into the street.

  He followed him hastily into the chill, his cloak wrapped tightly around him.

  'Tryst,' Jeryd called out across the fresh snow, his voice echoing in the still of the early evening.

  The young man stopped to look back and, on recognizing Jeryd, approached. 'Investigator, you need me?'

  Jeryd looked him up and down, rage fluctuating inside him. He felt a strange respect for the levels this treacherous bastard would stoop to in order to achieve his ends. 'Walk with me awhile, I've something important to discuss.'

  Through the alleyways of the old city, and down towards the caves. They passed two quiet irens packing up for the day, the street traders looking glum at the lack of business in such miserable weather. A few fires were still lit where women sold fried spiced pastries, the smoke trapped ghost-like in the frozen air. Eventually they came to a neighbourhood where Jeryd felt able to continue the conversation. Graffiti covered the walls, tags and obscenities and protests of love. Moss gathered where it could in damp corners.

  'The councillor murders,' Jeryd began, 'has that prostitute come up with anything yet?'

  'Afraid not, sir.' Tryst's calm expression showed no sign of any deception.

  'Where's Miss Daluud now precisely?' Jeryd enquired.

  A flash of anxiety in his eyes?

  'I can't be sure,' Tryst replied. 'Not at the moment. You wish to speak to her? I think if I have a little more time I could get some answers for you. I'm keen to succeed.'

  'Are you, now,' Jeryd muttered.

  'Sir?' Tryst tilted his head, his expression still all innocence. 'I'm not sure I follow.'

  Jeryd looked around, at the run-down stone dwellings with their rotting wooden doors and windows. No one else was nearby. The sun had set almost completely, casting a dreary ambience over the scene.

  He said, 'I'll be arresting her myself tomorrow, so I fear she'll not be able to help you any more.' Jeryd saw the panic in Tryst's eyes, the collapse of a plan, and continued. 'You know, that clone of my wife you both created, even though you already knew that she was a murderer. Withholding information from the Inquisition. That was particularly low, but there are quite a few black marks mounting up against you. Using banned substances to influence suspects. But it isn't that which I'm really pissed off about.'

  Tryst remained silent, instinctively backing away, nothing but cold stone behind him.

  'No.' Jeryd looked this way and that. 'What I'm really annoyed about is the fact that you dragged my wife into your little schemes.'

  Tryst finally spoke up. 'You were the one who struck her-'

  Jeryd thumped Tryst in the stomach, doubling him up against the wall. The rumel then bought his knee up sharply into Tryst's exposed face. Blood flecked the wall as Tryst collapsed into the snow holding his nose.

  'Did you drug me too, that night?'

  No response till Jeryd kicked his subordinate in the back. The human arched like a bridge, then moaned.

  'Yes, but…'

  Jeryd pulled a blade from his sleeve, stared at the man lying before him. He could slit his throat here and now, and no one would notice. He could move the body to Caveside, where this sort of thing happened daily. But then his rage subsided into something much calmer, much colder. If he did not kill him, Tryst would have to be arrested – but then he might reveal how Jeryd had struck his wife unconscious.

  Tryst looked up pathetically, clutching his gut with one hand, his nose with the other. It was in moments like this that Jeryd realized lives could be altered forever.

  'I'm… sorry, Jeryd,' Tryst gasped. 'I was angry. I resented you.'

  Jeryd looked down at him. 'There were,' he snarled, 'other ways to let me know.'

  'I wanted to make you suffer, so you would know how I felt… I deserved that promotion.'

  Both men remained silent for a while as a banshee screamed somewhere in Caveside. Jeryd again looked down at Tryst and could see the fear in the young man's eyes, as if that sound was a premonition.

  Tryst said, 'What're you going to do with me?'

  What could Jeryd do? He wasn't a
murderer. But nor did he want Marysa to find out the truth.

  'Here's what I think,' he said. 'I could knife you here and now, blame it on the usual suspects. There are plenty to choose from. But I won't do that because I, at least, have morals.' He put the knife away. 'But I don't want Marysa finding out any of this, either. If she does, you'll either be a wanted man, or a dead man.' He leaned forward to look straight into Tryst's bloodied face. 'That, I swear by.'

  'Please, I beg you, just let this go, Jeryd. We can put this behind us.'

  The rumel grunted a dry laugh.

  Tryst continued, 'What about Tuya? We know she's the killer. We can get her locked up and we'll be rewarded for solving the murders.'

  Except there's more to this, isn't there, something to do with a few thousand refugees being cynically exterminated by their own rulers. And exactly how much do you know about that?

  Jeryd sighed. 'All right, don't come anywhere near the Inquisition chambers for the next couple of days. When you do come back, you'll not be working with me. If you reveal any of this mess, your dismembered body will be found in some alleyway. Are we clear on that?'

  Tryst nodded eagerly, dabbing his bleeding nose with his fingers.

  Jeryd turned away, headed off down the snow-plagued street.

  *

  Jeryd stood looking over the city walls to the refugee settlement, the hundreds of campfires looking hopeless and suffocated by the encroaching night. Streams of smoke wafted from between tents. The barking dogs echoed endlessly across the tundra. There were said to be nearly ten thousand refugees huddled down there, in that expanse between the city walls and the beach. The very spirit of the hell they lived in seemed to rise above like a depressive cloud.

  He wondered for a moment if the stories he'd heard were true: that the refugees had taken to eating their dogs and cats, and in some taverns a rumour broke out that they had taken to cannibalism, consuming those already dead from disease or starvation. Jeryd knew the Council were the ones manufacturing such talk, being the only ones allowed to distribute the news pamphlets. The gates of Villjamur now separated those who struggled to get on with death from those who struggled to get on with life. The only thing they had in common was struggle.

  Jeryd was going to leave Villjamur as soon as he could. Of that he was certain. Life was too short to waste it in a city whose government would stoop to slaughtering its own. He had enough money to risk uprooting to another city of the Empire, somewhere much quieter. Perhaps on Southfjords, or maybe he could even strike a deal with the cultists and build a cottage on Ysla with its milder climate. Whichever way, his disgust with this city, and himself, meant he had to get out of here. With Marysa, of course. Because he loved her, and that was all that mattered. You went through life working so hard and acquiring all the things that you were meant to. Now some way down that journey, perhaps even too late, Jeryd realized he should have gone in some other direction.

  He regarded the clustered refugees once again. How exactly did Urtica intend to kill them all? More importantly, could Jeryd stop it from happening?

  Footsteps approached along the top of the stone wall – the figure of Investigator Fulcrom. The wind picked up, racing across the tundra and blasting directly into his face, and it brought him to some new state of alertness. Despite his thick rumel skin, he shivered, drew his cloak tighter around him.

  'Jeryd, you've not looked yourself these past few days, and I'm getting worried about you.' It was unusual these days for anyone in Villjamur, let alone another rumel, to show such concern, but he knew he could trust this colleague. So Jeryd began to relate everything that had gone on recently – about Tryst and Tuya, the truth about the councillor murders and how these murders were linked to a conspiracy to eradicate the refugees. Behind it all was the secret cult of the Ovinists.

  They were clearly involved.

  'Jeryd, that's so awful,' Fulcrom said, after a moment's silence. 'But who is heading up the Ovinists in the Council?'

  'Urtica,' Jeryd said bluntly.

  'Chancellor Urtica?' Fulcrom said in dismay.

  'The prostitute insists he was involved somehow. Amazing what a man will tell a woman across a pillow when their business is done.'

  'I wouldn't know too much about that,' Fulcrom admitted.

  Jeryd grunted a laugh. 'Anyway, something's going to happen soon, but I don't know when. For all I know it could be already happening.'

  'I can't believe we've got corruption at so high a level,' Fulcrom remarked. 'It's disgusting, when you consider these people have been voted in by our citizens.'

  'The Council has always been about maintaining the illusion that a vote gives the people a say in affairs, when all the time they control communication – like generating fear against these helpless refugees. That a democracy? You tell me. But in such an organization the Ovinists would fit very well. What's worse is that this cult has attracted so many powerful members. They could be operating anywhere – even in the Inquisition.'

  'D'you really think people higher up in our own organization already know about it? The refugees, I mean.'

  'It's possible. Thing is, I don't want thousands of innocent men, women and children dying through the devious machinations of my Empire. Not in my name at least. I don't care what the hell happens, but we've got to do the right thing. We must show ourselves to be good people.'

  Good people…

  He liked to think that there were some moral absolutes in the world, that Villjamur's rulers had not been reduced to moral nihilism. That good was to be done and to be pursued, and evil avoided. Some things, to Jeryd, seemed natural, an essential part of existence.

  It helped, being an investigator, to believe in law.

  'What can we do?' Fulcrom rested his hands on the wall, staring out over the refugee encampment. 'If something's going on this high up the ranks… We'll find ourselves on our own.'

  'Probably. But, maybe you know other people we can trust?'

  Fulcrom said, 'Sure. Some good types in the Inquisition. I've inside contacts with the city guard, too, for that matter.'

  'Good. I'm now going to organize weaponry of some sort. Meanwhile if you can ask every man in the Inquisition you can trust, to watch out for any unusual movement of men. It would need a sizeable operation to remove so many people from outside the city, so there'll be plenty of visible activity. But we've got the law and morality on our side, so if anyone finds out what we're doing, they'll not be able to stop us easily.'

  'Unless they kill us first,' Fulcrom suggested.

  'Yes. Unless they kill us.'

  'But still, if we don't know how Urtica plans to achieve this massacre, it'll remain difficult to foil his plans. How would one eliminate so many people without others soon knowing about it?'

  Jeryd was silent as he reflected on this, and could not think of a plausible answer.

  It had been a long time since Jeryd had been required to participate in an armed mission, and never on a scale such as this. The last time he had fired a crossbow was before Johynn was born, against a corrupt network of the city guard who were abusing their position to kidnap young girls in Caveside and sell them as sex slaves to private landowners on the outer islands.

  This was not a bunch of renegades, but the chancellor they were up against. Obviously Urtica was power-mad and hungry for control, prepared to go to any lengths to achieve his insane objectives. Clearly, in his eyes, removing the nuisance of the refugees was a good thing, reducing the strains on the city's resources that would, ultimately, lead to great political unrest. For Urtica to retain his seat comfortably, the refugees had to go.

  Both rumels stared out at the familiar evening scene. Theirs would be no easy task, but it was the right thing to do. Jeryd felt a great sadness at the corruption overtaking his beloved city. All that mattered now was that he would do all he could.

  FORTY-ONE

  Another one of those melancholy nights of Villjamur, in which a pterodette called out across the city's spires
so loudly it sounded like a banshee. Up here on the top floor of the Imperial residence, starlight clearly defined the rooftops, meaning the evening would be cold and cloudless. Incense burned somewhere, mere hints of it on the breeze, prompting thoughts of some wild ritual being performed in a forgotten corner of the city.

  Tryst loved this city and he could easily see how it invoked such passions in people – in Chancellor Urtica, in himself. Raising a corner of the tapestry preserving the still warmth of the chamber, he stared idly out of a window, waiting for Urtica to arrive. There were occasions, in the chancellor's presence, when Tryst felt so much reverence for him that he wanted to be part of his consciousness and see the world through his master's eyes.

  The door opened and Urtica marched into the ornate room, with its glittering trinkets arranged around the immense fireplace.

  'Sele of Jamur, chancellor,' Tryst greeted him.

  'What happened to your face?' Urtica paused as he moved closer. 'A fight, I suspect? I hope you're not attracting too much unwarranted attention.'

  'No, not at all. It was just… well, Investigator Jeryd had some sharp words to say to me.'

  'What about?'

  Tryst met his gaze boldly as they eyed each other across the glow of the flames. Tryst had used Tuya to all advantage, now simply wanted her out of the way. He probably would have killed her if she hadn't escaped him and run to Jeryd. Now the damned rumel knew everything. No matter, Tryst would soon have her hunted down, with a reward on her head. 'I strongly believe that a prostitute is responsible for the councillor murders.'

  'A prostitute?' Urtica wore a look of utter amazement on his face.

  'Yes, from what I gather, Ghuda spilled certain secrets across a pillow. Disclosures that linked him with you, sir. She learned about your plans for the removal of refugees. She knows who was involved and decided to take matters into her own hands.'

  Urtica interrupted, 'We can't have her blabbing such rumours in case she brings attention to me. She must be removed promptly.' The chancellor paused. 'Does Jeryd also know of this?'