by Barb Hendee
“A few asked about our progress,” Garrogh said. “I wouldn’t make much of it. With sages being murdered in alleys, the whole city is starting to talk.”
Rodian sighed. Rumors were like a disease upon wisdom. And he would look like a fool for his failure. But if this physician was indeed an expert on toxins, why was he employed by the royal family? The reskynna had little to fear of being poisoned. They were beloved by all, with a few exceptions in their ancestry. Perhaps this foreigner had other skills they valued, like that strange and silent elf the duchess kept in her company.
A knock came at the door, and both Rodian and Garrogh sat upright, exchanging expectant glances.
“Come,” Rodian called.
Guardsman Lúcan stuck his head in the door. “Captain, are you free? That Suman physician is asking for you.”
Rodian ducked around his desk before Garrogh made it off his stool.
“Get a journal,” he told his second, “and take notes.”
He didn’t wish to be distracted by doing so himself. An instant later they were out the door and hurrying down the twisting passageways toward the kitchens. The bodies had been temporarily stored in the cold cellar.
Rodian walked as quickly as he could without appearing anxious, slowing only as he passed through the large kitchens to the scullery beyond. Pulling open the heavy door to the cellar, he was down the stairs, boots clomping on the stone floor, before Garrogh even closed the upper entrance.
The physician stood with his back turned, leaning over a short chopping-block table.
Rodian had met him earlier that morning, but they’d exchanged few words. The man was slender, with dusky skin, dark hair, and a neatly trimmed goatee. He wore clean muslin robes of a sandy color, and a cloth wrap was held about his head by a twined braid of amber cord. He didn’t look old enough to be an expert on anything.
Miriam’s pallid body was laid out naked upon the chopping-block table, like some unskinned side of pork.
All Rodian could see around the physician’s bulky robe were her head and shoulders and her thick calves and feet. Her eyes had been closed, but this did nothing to soften her twisted features locked in horror. Shots of ashen gray ran through the natural brown of her hair.
And then Rodian noticed a bloodied curved knife. It lay near where the Suman leaned a hand upon the table. But Rodian was too eager for answers to give it immediate thought.
“Well?” he demanded without a greeting, for he was tired of remaining polite.
The physician turned, exposing a clear view of the table, and Rodian’s mouth went dry.
The girl’s torso was split open from her throat to her privates. The skin across her chest and abdomen had been peeled back, exposing internal organs and ribs.
Behind Rodian, Garrogh whispered something under his breath.
“What have you done?” Rodian began, and then he went mute.
The Suman frowned, openly perplexed by his visitors’ reactions. “I was told to make a thorough examination.”
Rodian found his voice. “Yes, examination . . . not mutilation!”
This young girl had died horribly. She’d been violated enough in that alley. And now he’d unwittingly authorized this butchery.
“Without an internal assessment,” the physician said coldly, “I cannot provide any dependable conclusions.”
Rodian took three weak breaths, trying to regain his calm.
He was dealing with a Suman—like il’Sänke—who saw no connection between the body and the sentient spirit. Humans of all races, and dwarves and elves, were the highest of living beings in the eyes of Toiler, Maker, and Dreamer. Even the body—the vessel—was sacred. This Suman could never begin to comprehend such truth.
Rodian would have to go to temple and pray for this mistake of oversight.
“What have you learned?” he demanded. “How did she die?”
The physician wiped the girl’s gore from his hands with dampened burlap. He stepped to the table’s head, scowling down at Miriam’s tormented face. About to speak, he stopped and leaned lower, as if inspecting some overlooked detail. Then he shook his head and began again in his thick accent.
“Upon initial examination, I felt certain the cause was poison. You must have noted the grayed flesh and lack of injury?”
Rodian didn’t respond. He could only stare at Miriam’s split flesh.
“I searched for methods of introduction,” the Suman went on, “hoping to lift traces of any substance used. There are quick-acting compounds that can be introduced by breath, contact with the skin, or even through orifices other than the mouth.”
“You found something?” Rodian asked, his anxiety building. “You must have.”
Some gain had to be achieved for this atrocity.
“No,” the physician answered.
Rodian forced his eyes to follow as the man pointed inside the girl’s opened torso.
“Her lungs are whole and healthy,” the Suman continued, “as is the lining of her throat. There are no signs of chemical or particulate damage to her internal organs. I found nothing in the nostrils or ears or anywhere upon her skin. Anything introduced to the eyes might have thinned in tears but would also have left traces for such a quick death.”
The physician shook his head, huffing through his long beak of a nose, and his frown deepened.
“Then what?” Garrogh demanded, the journal and a shaft of writing charcoal in his hand.
“I do not know what killed her and caused such discoloration and discomfort. She simply died suddenly.”
Rodian felt his throat closing up.
The girl had been mutilated for nothing, and the sound of Garrogh scribbling notes didn’t resume. Rodian whirled for the stairs, hurrying to get out of this cold, dim space.
“Sir,” Garrogh called. “Where are you going?”
“The guild. Please see our guest back to the royal grounds.”
He nearly ran up the stairs, out through the scullery and kitchen, not caring if the staff saw his state. He didn’t slow until he reached the courtyard and the stables along the south wall. Breathing fresh air as fast and deep as he could, he strode past the stable warden and saddled Snowbird himself. He patted her when she tried to nuzzle him, but then quickly swung up on her back.
Rodian tried to wipe the image of the cold cellar from his thoughts as he urged Snowbird into a canter down the second castle’s gatehouse tunnel. He couldn’t get the sight of Miriam out of his head, but he felt equally tangled in the strands of some web. It held him in place, forcing him to do little but watch, like a bound and useless spectator.
How could Duchess Reine, or the rest of the royal family, send him that Suman butcher?
The Numan Lands had seen no war in Rodian’s lifetime, but he had seen battle in his younger days. One tour of duty had placed him near, and even beyond, Malourné’s far eastern border. Even farther out were the Broken Lands—wild terrain with little to no civilization, stretching nearly to the eastern coast. Sometimes straggling bands of hulkish little beasts on two legs wandered into the farthest farmlands and forest communities.
He had seen soldiers bashed and torn apart, for those things ate nearly anything digestible. Hence their name—goblins . . . the little “gobblers.”
They weren’t so little. Ranging up to two-thirds the height of man, they hunted in packs, like wild dogs, and could tear apart a man, hauling his pieces away for their food.
But it wasn’t the same as that girl cut open in the cold cellar.
He’d never thought how different these southlanders, the Sumans, were from his people. How could anyone in Calm Seatt expect such foreigners to exhibit decent moral reasoning, let alone ethical behavior?
Rodian tried to call up an image of the Trinity set in white stone upon the temple’s dais.
“Forgive me,” he kept whispering, “for my ignorance and failing of foresight.”
As Snowbird’s hooves clopped on cobblestone, Rodian was barely aware enough t
o steer her course. He tried to clear his thoughts with what few facts he possessed.
The killer knew about the sages’ project and could read their symbols. The translation had been ongoing for perhaps half a year. The killer had waited, seeming to know—or guess—which folios to go after.
Was the murderer someone inside the guild?
The killer had torn out a piece of a brick wall with only his hand. And not a stitch of his clothing had succumbed to the sudden fire in the alley.
A mage perhaps?
Rodian knew of few such in the city, let alone elsewhere. Several apothecaries claimed to be alchemists, dabblers in what the guild called thaumaturgy. Dâgmund had clearly possessed such skill. But Rodian didn’t know of anyone who worked the other art the sages called conjury.
There were two dwarven “stone-melders” who’d taken up residence in Calm Seatt. They often plied their trade as special masons for those who could afford them. But the figure in the alley had been tall, perhaps even trim beneath that billowing cloak, so certainly no dwarf.
Rodian considered the strange elf he’d seen with members of the royal family.
And then there was the guild—and its Order of Metaology.
It was said that they made the crystals used in the sages’ special lamps, and occasionally had a hand in other works of this thaumaturgy. But he’d never heard of any, inside or outside of the guild, who could stand in fire or shatter brick with one hand.
Metaologers wore midnight blue robes.
Rodian closed his eyes and saw swirling black robes that appeared to float over the alley walls. Like Domin il’Sänke’s robe, easily mistaken for black in the dark.
What had Wynn said about him? He is a master of metaology.
Il’Sänke had no alibi for the night of Elias’s and Jeremy’s deaths, or not one that weighed much under scrutiny. Rodian knew better than to make a claim against a sage, not until he had sufficient evidence. And the royal family would be deeply disturbed if it turned out to be true.
Or would they?
Il’Sänke wasn’t a sage of Calm Seatt. He was from the empire far south beyond the Rädärsherând—the “Sky-Cutter” range separating the north from the vast desert. He was a Suman.
Snowbird slowed as Rodian turned her up Old Procession Road, straight toward the guild’s gate. By now, Sykion and the entire premin council would know of last night’s events. Likely the whole guild would be whipped up in panic.
May the Trinity forgive him, but he hoped so. All the better, all the more pressure when he pressed them for answers, regardless of Duchess Reine’s shielding influence.
Where had Domin il’Sänke been last night?
He urged Snowbird through the gatehouse tunnel, not bothering to halt when a slim initiate in tan scurried out for his horse. He rode straight into the courtyard before dismounting.
“Stay,” he told Snowbird.
Rodian didn’t bother knocking and pushed through the double doors. Several apprentices coming out quickly jumped aside as he turned down the passage toward the common hall.
“Sir! Can we help you?”
He ignored them, though one young man in a teal robe chased after him.
“Please, sir. You cannot just wander about. . . . Is there someone you wish to see?”
Rodian walked straight through the common hall for the smaller side archway—and the passage to the northern tower. When he climbed the turning stairs to the third level, the door stood open.
Some of Rodian’s cold anger drained away as he peered in. High-Tower sat behind his desk with his wide face in his large hands. His gray-laced reddish hair hung in a mess. When he lifted his head, his eyes were blank and bleak.
The young apprentice ran puffing up behind Rodian.
“Domin,” he panted. “Apologies . . . I know you’re busy. . . . I tried to stop him.”
Standing in the doorway, Rodian glanced about the study. Other than stacked texts he’d seen on his last visit, it didn’t look like the domin was occupied.
“It is all right,” High-Tower mumbled. “Go back to your studies.”
The apprentice glared disapprovingly at Rodian, then turned and stomped back down the stairs.
“I was about to send for you,” High-Tower said quietly.
Rodian almost asked why. But he waited as the domin folded his massive hands together, lacing his thick, short fingers. High-Tower’s gaze hardened, but not at Rodian. Instead the dwarf stared across the room at the wall or out the window beyond the open door.
“I sent out no folio today,” High-Tower added. “I cannot risk harm to any more of our own. So our work has come to a halt . . . for the moment. You had best come in, Captain. There is much to discuss, but close the door first.”
Rodian didn’t care for the feel of this moment. He’d come for his own reasons, and the dwarf was suddenly far too accommodating. He stepped in, reaching for the open door’s handle.
A dark figure stood in the evening shadows, hidden between the obstructing door and the room’s deep-set window.
At the sight of a black cloak, Rodian reached for his sword.
The figure tilted its head up.
Beneath a wide-brimmed black hat with a flat top, Pawl a’Seatt fixed glittering brown eyes on Rodian.
“Good evening, Captain,” the scribe master said evenly.
Rodian faltered. “Why are you here?”
“I was asked,” a’Seatt answered, and his gaze slid smoothly to High-Tower. “Now, perhaps you would shut the door so that we may both be enlightened.”
Several days passed without incident, and Wynn had made little headway with her research. Not that there weren’t more shelves of texts to go through, or that she’d ever get through all of them, but what little she found added nothing to what she’d gathered.
At times her thoughts drifted to Miriam, Nikolas, and Dâgmund. She alone understood that the killer was unnatural, and that knowledge felt like a curse. It left her wondering what more she could’ve done to protect the three young sages. The guilt was almost crippling.
But to know the truth was better, no matter how alone and terrified it left her.
Wynn had visited Nikolas several times. He hadn’t awoken but was no worse off by Domin Bitworth’s estimate, though the master naturologer could offer no guesses as to what ailed the young apprentice. Bitworth seemed quietly disturbed by Nikolas’s new gray hairs.
Premin Sykion made it clear that no one was to whisper any wild notions or spread any rumors until Nikolas woke up and gave his own account of what happened. Silently, Wynn believed an undead had somehow tried to feed upon Nikolas so rapidly that it caused effects akin to premature aging. She researched this, but the archives held nothing concerning the myths of vampires found only in the Farlands.
And the days passed so slowly.
She wanted to practice with the sun crystal, as the only means to protect herself and others. But Domin il’Sänke made her swear not to “toy” with the staff outside of his supervision. And he’d been busy, often locked in his chamber or down in the workshops. Hopefully he would come tonight.
So she sat in her room, reorganizing her notes, though soon she should head to the main hall for supper. If she saw il’Sänke, she might corner him and arrange more time for lessons.
Closing the journal, Wynn headed out, but as she neared the stairs at the passage’s end, low, rapid voices made her pause. She crept forward just enough to peek around the corner.
On the bottom landing before the door to the courtyard, three apprentices stood chattering in hushed tones. That nasty Regina Melliny was closest, with her back turned to the stairs, but the other two wore the gray of cathologers beneath their heavy cloaks. Wynn had seen them both around the guild but didn’t know their names.
“What did High-Tower say?” Regina asked.
“Not a blasted thing!” a young man with sloping eyes replied. “I almost fainted when the old stone-face told me to go fetch a folio tonight.”
“I don’t care!” the first countered. “I’m just glad we made it home . . . and I wasn’t sorry not to carry back a folio. Master a’Seatt can face him for that.”
Wynn drew back out of sight.
Not a single folio had been sent out since the night of Miriam’s and Dâgmund’s deaths. But High-Tower had sent one to the Upright Quill and then sent messengers to retrieve it. What was he thinking?
Wynn tried to lean out again without being seen.
