The Seer

by Jordan Reece

  “Why are you in the wheelchair? What did you bloody well do to yourself this time?” he snapped in disapproval.

  “It was an accident, and a small one,” Jesco said. “A child touched me with her toy. She only wanted to show it to me. What brings you here?”

  “I was coming back from the Hall of Records on Cornice Street and it takes me right past the asylum.”

  “Sure, right past it if one goes completely out of the way.”

  Scoth’s lip quirked. “You know what I named the destination card for the asylum? Prick Pick-up. Now be quiet and listen to this. I looked up a lot of things today, starting with the Tralonn Corporation. It’s a wealth management branch of a bank, handles billions of dollars in client assets. It seems that the Rosendrie South Press wasn’t doing well financially, which was why the Armex family put up a part of it for sale. Tralonn owns half of it and took over the daily operations; the family owns the other half and stepped back.”

  “The paper became the mouthpiece of a bank, or a division of it.”

  “There are twenty-five members on the board. Eight of them have ties in some way to Ainscote mines. The ones that interested me most are two men named Ivan Camso and Torrus Kodolli. Merlie couldn’t remember the name, but all of her attempts had similarities. Camso’s father-in-law owns Shayner Gems, an operation at the southernmost tip of Ainscote. Now, Kyrad Naphates’ mines do precious little in way of gems. Oil shale, limestone, rock salt, potash for fertilizers, those are the larger chunk of her gigs and they’re spread out all over this country and abroad.”

  “They aren’t competitors,” Jesco said.

  “No, they aren’t. Then I looked into Kodolli and things got more interesting. He’s got competing interests in his company named Agrea, and Agrea makes S. Pecost & Sons look like sweethearts who care. Half the mining deaths in the last one hundred years were in Agrea-owned mines. Fought or flat-out ignored every regulation in all that time, and only conceded reluctantly when the government started to fine Agrea outrageous amounts. That was after Naphates changed her mines. It was a domino effect, really, what she started. She increased the wages, made it safer, recognized the union, let government officials inspect, and all of that. Miners at other companies began to agitate for the same treatment, walking off the job and costing the owners money. I can see why the heads of the industry would have a grudge against her. They were doing things exactly how they pleased and one of their own betrayed them. Old Cluven Naphates let the fox into the henhouse when he married a former miner, and I mean it as a compliment to the fox.”

  Gavon stopped at the table with a bowl of ice cream and Scoth interrupted himself to scold, “You can’t give that to him! You’re touching it with your bare hands!”

  “It’s all right,” Jesco said. “For some reason, Gavon doesn’t impart memories to my belongings. Gavon, could I have a second bowl for the detective here?”

  “Oh, sure,” Gavon said placidly. Even the stern homicide detective was five years old in his head, and he asked, “Do you like chocolate or vanilla?”

  “I don’t need-” Scoth started.

  “I’ll get you a scoop of both and you can decide.”

  “I don’t need-” Scoth repeated helplessly to Gavon’s retreating back.

  “When’s the last time you ate?” Jesco asked. “Oh, that’s right, you haven’t yet today. You’ve been working, and hunger is for the common man.”

  “I had something at breakfast,” Scoth grumbled.

  The attendant returned with a bowl and spoon, which he handed to Scoth. “Now, mind you, don’t touch Jesco’s table. He’s a seer.”

  “I am,” Jesco confessed.

  “Ruddy insane, the whole lot of you,” Scoth mumbled, and pushed a heaping spoonful of chocolate into his mouth.

  “Did you learn anything else today?” Jesco asked.

  “I’m getting to it,” Scoth said, swallowing ravenously on a second spoonful. “Kodolli is a very old man with homes and business offices all over Ainscote. He also maintains a home and office in the Sarasasta Islands.”

  “Is he of such influence that a newspaper would mention him attending a Cantercaster play?”

  “Don’t skip ahead. He married his wife Cliya Burne when they were in their thirties. Burne is a well-known acting family in the theater world. She acted herself when young, never top-bill but she didn’t have any trouble getting cast in smaller roles. Whether that was talent or her family name, I can’t say. She retired upon her marriage and bore two sons, Morgan and Flike, and one daughter Sherra. Flike fell off a cliff at a party and killed himself at fifteen.”

  “How did he manage to do that?”

  “Bunch of young fools being daredevils and it cost him his life. So that was the end of Flike Kodolli. Sherra took her mother’s maiden name of Burne when she became an adult and is still acting today under it. She’s married to another actor, no children, and her company tours in northern Ainscote.”

  “And Morgan?”

  “Morgan Kodolli is a vice-president of Agrea. Married and with two children, both of who are now in their twenties. It makes sense that this family would be mentioned in the papers for attending performances. I looked into their charitable contributions and there are several playhouses that benefit from them. Then I pulled up the papers in the cities where they’re located and yes, the Kodolli name comes up here and there, especially on Benefactors’ Nights, where a special dinner and performance is thrown in honor of the people who donate large amounts of money. Torrus Kodolli attends often. Not every one, of course, since he’s constantly traveling between his offices. It’s not evidence of anything, but it’s reasonable to assume this could be the man that Tallo Quay was chasing.” Scoth dribbled the melted drops at the bottom of the bowl onto his spoon to consume those as well.

  “Kodolli could be very bitter at Kyrad Naphates still,” Jesco said, stringing it together as he spoke. “And Tallo Quay could have known that from living in her home as an escort. He could have heard her talking about Kodolli, and other mine owners who were angry with her for how the industry changed. And when she angered Tallo, he went snooping and found out who in Parliament was secretly helping her business along. Would that information be valuable to Kodolli?”

  “They get voted in,” Scoth said. “Know your enemies and then pull every dirty political trick you can to get them voted out. Or simply go to the press and accuse them of slipping her favors on the sly. Ruin reputations, start investigations . . . yes, I can see how Quay would think he was holding the jackpot in those names. And what did he want for himself? He wanted an acting career. Ivan Camso has no connection to the theater, but Kodolli! Who better to approach than Torrus Kodolli, married to a former actress, the father of a current actress, and with a possible grudge against Naphates? Sadly for Quay, Kodolli is a very hard man to track down.”

  “Did you look up what play it could be?”

  “I searched for tragedies that don’t get put on very often. I wish Merlie Jonkins could have been more specific. But I did find, at Luthen Playhouse, a run of Scarred Crest. That fits the bill, if you pardon the pun. It’s a famous play, but it’s run only twice in the last ten years. It was playing in autumn three years ago. Merlie said Quay took his coat and gloves because it was getting cold. I thought she meant the showing was at night, but perhaps she meant the time of year. It was mentioned in the Cantercaster-Oftow News that Torrus Kodolli would be attending the Benefactors’ Night. There was a long list of benefactors printed on the back page of the community section. His wife wasn’t mentioned, but I learned from another source that she is an invalid. Her health is poor, and she stays in their island home. The warmth does her well.”

  The dining hall had cleared out considerably while they talked. Only two women were left at a far table, one casting admiring glances to Scoth. “Do you know where Torrus Kodolli is now?” Jesco asked.

  “I do, in fact. He’s in Somentra currently, up in the hills miles away where he rents space in
Cable Holding. We’ll be going to his office tomorrow, unless you have somewhere else to be.”

  “Still, nothing in this connects to Hasten Jibb. Anyone could have lost a timepiece there. We’re only assuming it has something to do with the body.”

  “What are the odds that not one but two people went down that alley in Poisoners’ Lane, and at roughly the same time?”

  “Does Torrus Kodolli own a home in Melekei? Or anywhere on the route that Jibb would have taken that day to get home?”

  Deflating a little, Scoth said, “No. But this is the only lead we have. The only other piece that’s new to this is what a courier saw on the road Jibb was taking home.”

  “You didn’t tell me about that.”

  “I had flyers put up around Melekei and in the streets around his home, asking the public for information. A response came in just this morning. I stopped at the station before I went to research and found a letter on my desk. A courier from another company, Stanley Moss of Post on Wings, claims that he saw Hasten Jibb in late afternoon picking up his bicycle off the side of the road in that stretch of farm country outside Melekei. He slowed and asked if Jibb was all right, and Jibb said that he’d hit a rock going too fast on his way to Chussup and went flying. But the bicycle was undamaged, and Jibb wasn’t hurt. Landed in tall, thick grass and that cushioned it. Moss rode on and left him behind, picking up the packages that had fallen out of his satchel.” Scoth shrugged. “Nothing queer about that, and there wasn’t even a bruise from it on Jibb’s body the next day. Moss said there’s a sharp, pebbly turn there that he’s taken too fast himself, and nothing was amiss about the scene, so he’d forgotten all about it until he saw the flyer. Maybe Jibb was embarrassed about the fall, so he wasn’t in good spirits when he got home.”

  “But what were the packages?” Jesco wondered. “He had already taken the whirly-gigs to that old woman and that was his last delivery of the day.”

  Scoth’s mouth flapped wordlessly. As a kitchen worker came out to wipe down the tables, Gavon returned and said, “Do you want a roll to your room?”

  “I’ll roll him!” Scoth said almost in a yell, ripping the pad of paper from his pocket and flipping through the pages rapidly. “Why the hell did Jibb have packages at that point? He had taken the lord’s jewels to the bank hours before and Mrs. Cussling didn’t mention giving him anything to deliver.” He came to the page where he had copied down the letter from the courier. “‘He was unharmed, not even a tear to his trousers at the knees, from landing in that river grass. There’s no river there but the grass grows thick and soft as a pillow.’”

  “Because they have to clean the tables now,” Gavon said obliviously.

  “‘I left him collecting the little packages that had fallen out of his satchel and rode on,’” Scoth concluded. Stuffing the pad away, he stood up and came around the table for Jesco’s chair. At the last moment he remembered his hands, and swiped two napkins from another table to cover them. He pulled Jesco away and rolled him to the doorway.

  “He was doing courier work on the side,” Jesco guessed, motioning to the hallway that led to his room. “Wassel said something about that. The company doesn’t approve of its couriers taking side jobs, but it’s hard to prevent. Jibb must have picked up those packages somewhere in his day.”

  Scoth opened the door to his room and pushed him inside. Standing with care, Jesco used the desk and chair for support and made his way to the bed. He sat down and pulled up his legs one after another. Scoth rolled the chair to the wall and parked it there, saying, “You would have made a fine detective.”

  “Thank you,” Jesco said.

  “Are these all yours?” Scoth asked about the whirly-gigs.

  “Yes. I love to collect them.”

  Scoth bent down to take a look at one. “A sunner? I’ve never seen one of these up close. Is this the kind that gives you a dose of sunlight on cloudy days or winter months?” Jesco nodded. He didn’t fall into a slump with the reduced winter light like others did, but it had been enjoyable to take apart. Keeping his hands covered with the napkins, Scoth picked it up to inspect it. He bumped the controls on the side and the golden disc grew brighter.

  “Just leave it,” Jesco said when the detective tried to turn it off. “It’ll go off on its own.”

  Scoth set down the sunner, which was filling the room with an intense golden light. “There’s an annual whirly-gig convention over in Sprogue. Have you ever been to it?”

  “No. I’ve never even heard about it.”

  “Companies bring out their newest. So do individual inventors, most hoping to get picked up by a big funder. There are marvels, there’s junk, and everything in between. Contests and demonstrations and little tent shops, too. It takes place at the end of next month and lasts for a weekend. I was just about to send away for my ticket of admission.”

  “That sounds like wonderful fun.”

  “If I can get away, that is.”

  “You can’t work all the time, Scoth. They walk with you, that’s true, but they can wait for a weekend to let you rest and recuperate.”

  Scoth was looking directly into the sunner. The light radiated upon his handsome face and illuminated paler strands in his dark hair. Though it was not winter, something in the blaze was relaxing the detective, and he did not look away from it. “These cases,” he said ruefully. “These are the ones that get to me the most. People like Hasten Jibb. No one cared much when they were alive. No one cares much now that they’re dead. Someone should care. Someone should give them a little respect by finding out what happened. I’m the last stop for someone to care, and I’m just a stranger. If the captain had his way, Hasten Jibb would vanish into the cold files and no one would spare him another thought. When the captain’s got relatives weeping and wailing in his office, then the victim is important because other people deemed him so. But if the victim didn’t count to anyone, then he doesn’t count to Whennoth either.”

  Scoth closed his eyes but kept his face turned to the sunner, letting the light beat through his lids. “It wasn’t a brother or cousin but a friend,” he said. “Back when we were boys. He was part of a frivolity circuit that went up and down the Razille in boats. They rarely went back to Lotaire. We got to be friends, he and I. They always stopped in Korval where there are fairgrounds. One of those people that you could not see for almost a year, and then pick up exactly where you left off. He was murdered when we were ten. And they never caught who did it. They never wrote to an asylum or a proper police station to see if they had a seer around. He was just another dark-haired Asqui brat on the circuit, and it was sad but . . .” He shrugged to show the lack of interest in pursuing the case.

  “But he was much more than that to you,” Jesco said.

  After a long, drawn-out breath within the beam of the sunner, Scoth said, “We just got on well, the two of us. Such good friends that we could finish each other’s sentences. His parents were dead, and he’d been taken in by the gamma. Usually circuits have a gamma or a gappa, an older person who minds the orphans. The gamma had eight or nine children to look after, too many to pay much attention to any one in particular. He had me, his summer buddy that he went swimming and fishing with, and I’d say I was the only one broken up about his murder. So sometimes it’s hard for me to see you do your work. Not you in a personal way, but any seer, that’s how I mean it. You could have given him some respect after he died, but none of you were there. No one sent for you. He didn’t count for enough. He wasn’t a businessman, or someone who lived in a big city where a seer is right at hand. He just vanished in pretty much every mind but mine.”

  “What was his name?” Jesco asked.

  The intensity of the light was fading, and Scoth glanced at him. “You would be the only one to ask that in the few times I’ve told the story. His name was Ramono, but he went by Ono. The Asqui word for zero. Even his name showed how he counted for nothing.”

  “There were no leads on his case? Nothing at all?”
>
  “I was supposed to meet up with him that day, but my mother had kept me behind for shirking my chores. I couldn’t leave until I finished them. A woman who’d gone to fish found Ono at the riverside, his upper body pushed into the water. It looked like he’d gotten into a fight, and someone held him under until he drowned. Towns like Korval don’t have official police like they do here. I’ve told you that. It’s just a bunch of privileged fools who like to wave clubs and homemade badges around to feel important. No witnesses, no motive, no interest, so no case. Now that I’m older, I have a better idea of what happened. There are different kinds of frivolity circuits. Some are a carnival of wonder, gymnasts flying through the air, wild animals jumping through burning hoops, and some are a carnival of contests. That was the kind Ono was on. Testing strength, speed, smarts, agility, luck, talents at singing and spelling and such. And some are more racy. Do you know about those?”

  “I’ve heard about them in passing.”

  “They’re banned in most places. Sexual feats, orgies, there aren’t too many of those types of frivolity circuits and they’re smaller than the other kinds. But some people think every circuit is that sort, and that every Asqui there is going to entertain that way. All of them carry knives as a precaution, even the children. You might go the length of a carnival and never get propositioned, but you’ll never go the length of your life in a frivolity circuit and never have it happen to you. Ono was bothered for the first time when he was eight.”

  “That’s terrible.”