by Darian Smith
Chapter Seventeen
The moon was high in the sky as Brannon and Draeson disembarked from the carriage at the steps of the Alapran Third Monastery cathedral. Braziers lined the entrance to the large stone building which served both as the public face and place of worship for the monastery but also as the entry point to the wider complex behind and beneath. Brannon had the egg-like pod tucked under his arm and had arranged his coat around it so as not to draw attention.
Draeson wrinkled his nose at him. “You're going to get goop all over your clothes carrying that thing like that.”
Brannon shrugged. “They're only clothes.”
“Well, if the chicken who laid that egg comes looking for it, don't expect sympathy from me.”
Brannon ignored him and led the way up the stairs and into the cathedral.
The foyer was a grand affair. The monastery had been expanded and rebuilt over the years to the point that it was hard to tell where the old complex left off and newer sections began, but the foyer and main worship areas were always maintained to look as new and welcoming as possible. Marble floors were laid with rugs woven in intricate designs and the walls decorated with paintings and tapestries depicting the lives of the gods. A few people were scattered here and there, insomnia and the darkness of night having brought a need for religious comfort from wherever it lay hidden in daylight.
In between the artworks were small alcoves with seating to allow individuals or small groups a few moments of private contemplation. Large carved doors led to the main worship areas. Smaller ones to the sides opened into corridors that marked the way to the more private areas of the monastery—the workrooms, kitchens, living areas, gardens, and schools.
They also led to the basement where Brother Taran's laboratory was housed. Brannon made his way toward the side door to his left and saw a familiar figure in magistrate robes emerge from the corridor.
Magistrate Gawrick approached a man who was waiting in an alcove. “It's done,” he said. “You don't need to wait around.”
The stranger smiled. He wore his shoulder-length gray hair in a ponytail. There was a black opal resting below his Adam's apple, the colors shining inside it the only bright sparks in his otherwise dark attire. “Very well,” he said. “I'll be in touch.” He patted Gawrick on the shoulder and walked away.
Gawrick scowled after him, then caught sight of Brannon and stiffened. “Sir Brannon. Come to observe your team's lack of progress at last, have you? Or just hoping the goddess Ahpra will give you a clue?”
Brannon's jaw tightened and he angled his body to hide the egg, tugging his jacket to ensure it was covered. Keeping this latest development from Gawrick might be petty, but he'd been trying a more collaborative approach and the magistrate's attitude had not improved. If anything, it had worsened. “Just finding somewhere quiet to write my report to the king about how cooperative you're being,” he said.
Gawrick sniffed. “Yes, well,” he muttered. He waved toward the door he'd emerged from. “Do you know the way to Brother Taran's laboratory?”
“I do, thank you.”
Draeson chuckled as the two of them reached the stairs that led to the basement. “You know he's going to be worried that you'll actually report him to Aldan now.”
“Good,” Brannon said. “The man's been buzzing around this case like a fly in a medic tent and just as irritating.”
“He thinks you're stealing his job.”
“If only he knew.” Brannon sighed and took the egg out from under his jacket. “You'd have to be crazy to want this case.”
When they arrived at the lab, they found Brother Taran on his hands and knees, scrubbing at the floor with a large cloth, his hands covered to the elbow by long waxed leather gloves. Next to him was an earthenware bowl containing shards of broken glass. Taran looked up as they entered and Brannon noticed the priest was trembling.
Brannon moved toward the younger man. “What happened?”
Taran waved him off. “It's just an accident. I'm fine.” He grasped the bowl of glass and stood up. The shards rattled like tiny wind chimes. He set it on a workbench and moved away. “It's . . . I'm fine.” He took a flask out of his pocket, lifted it to his lips, paused, and then lowered it and put it away again without taking a drink. He pointed to the strange egg in Brannon's arms. “What's that?”
Brannon hefted it up onto the workbench, next to the broken glass, carefully avoiding the spilled chemicals and cloth on the floor as he did so. “We were hoping you could tell us. We found it at the dead man's house.”
“Stuck to the ceiling,” added Draeson. “I've never seen anything like it but we thought you might have, with your love of creepy-crawly things.” He gestured to the tanks and cages that ran along one wall of the lab, containing creagor spiders, locusts, and other random critters.
“Mmmm.” Taran was already staring at the inside of the broken egg. He peeled off the waxed gloves he'd been using and picked up a small metal spatula. He scraped the inside of the egg. A long string of green goop hung from the end of the spatula when he lifted it out. It smelled like rotted turnips and fish guts. He turned it, wrapping the substance around the metal, like thread on a spindle, then dropped it into a beaker. “Interesting.”
“That's one word for it,” Draeson said.
Brannon rubbed his nose, trying to get the smell out of his nostrils. “Can you identify it?”
“No,” Taran told him. “But I'll run some tests. Maybe I can learn something useful.”
Brannon shrugged. “Fine. Anything you can give us will help.” He could hear the lack of conviction in his own voice. Without knowing what came out of the egg, it would be difficult to know what they were looking for or even if it was relevant to the murder and missing child at all. For all he knew, the dead man could have been hatching giant lizards to skin for shoe leather. “What about the burned documents from the harbor master's office? Have you been able to salvage anything that might tell us who took the gold?”
“Almost,” Taran said. He led the way to another workbench where the burned papers sat like dry leaves raked into a pile. “There are two problems with trying to restore burned documents: They're fragile and they're black.”
“Sure,” said Brannon, uncertain if this needed confirmation.
Taran continued, his hands animated as he spoke. “Have you ever wondered why everything turns black when it burns?”
“Because it's burnt,” Draeson muttered.
Taran seemed not to hear him. “No matter what something was originally, once fire is done with it many of the qualities of what's left are the same. Black, falls apart, smudges on things. There are others too. It absorbs certain poisons, for example.”
“How does this help us?” Brannon asked.
“Well, this black stuff is called carbon and there are questions among alchemists about whether fire turns things into carbon or if carbon was in there all along and it's the only thing the fire doesn't eat . . . but the point is, with paper there are still traces of ink on the carbon.” He beamed at them.
“So?”
Taran blinked at them, clearly puzzled it wasn't obvious. “Oh, so I can bleach the ink without affecting the carbon. It will make the ink white so we can read it again.”
“Probably could have led with that.” Brannon chuckled. It was the first good news he'd had in the case. “And what about stopping it from falling apart while you bleach it?”
“Um, that's harder,” Taran admitted. “But I've mixed a bonding agent and applied it. If Magus Draeson can lend just a tiny bit of magic to cool the mix, I think it will firm up enough for me to separate at least one or two pieces and flatten them out.”
“No,” said Draeson. “I've done enough today. I need rest.”
“Come on,” Brannon urged him. “Just a little bit to support what Taran has done. If it's not stable enough for this part then we lose any chance of reading it.”
Draeson pulled up his sleeve to reveal his dragon tattoo sleeping i
n a circle on his forearm, its colors were faded almost to the point of extinction. “I'm not doing anything with magic until King Aldan or young Tommy fulfills their part of our bargain and provides me some royal blood. You forget that my power is not unlimited, Brannon. You need to stop expecting the impossible from me at every turn.”
Brannon rubbed the scar on his cheek. It was hard to argue. The mage had done a lot today. He'd more than earned a rest. But the temptation of finally getting an answer for at least one of the mysteries they were faced with, was too much. Brannon didn't think he could handle seeing whatever information the burned documents contained crumble into powder if Taran's chemical mix wasn't strong enough.
“Just this,” he said. “And I'll personally escort you to see Aldan tomorrow morning and bully him into feeding your tattoo.”
Draeson met his eyes and held them for a long time. “Fine,” he said at last, and looked away. “Just don't expect me to be much use until you do.”
Brannon felt the edge of his mouth twitch. “When do I ever expect that?”
Draeson ignored him and leaned over next to the burned papers. There was a stiffness to his movements that was reminiscent of his true age. Somehow Brannon had gotten used to seeing the mage in this new, youthful form. The magus was around four hundred years old and when Brannon had met him during the war, Draeson had looked every one of those years. It was only recently that he'd appeared closer to Taran's age. He'd brought his crotchety old-man personality into the more youthful body though, and mixed it with a young man's desires. It was little wonder they clashed at times.
The mage tapped the tattoo and the little dragon gave a restless little squirm before resuming its former position and continuing to sleep. “Fine,” muttered Draeson. “Don't need you anyway.” He pursed his lips to blow on the burned documents.
Brannon reached forward to stop him, fearing the breath would destroy what cohesiveness was left in the ash, but before his fingers could touch Draeson's shoulder, the mage waved him away. Instead of air, a small glittering cloud of ice particles drifted from Draeson's mouth to surround, but not touch, the ash.
“There,” he said. “That will lower the temperature. But it won't last long.”
“Oh, that will do nicely,” Taran said, beaming. “I already applied the adhesive.” He picked up a small pair of tongs and delicately pushed them through the cloud of cold to pry the first layer of ash away from the rest.
Brannon held his breath as he watched. The burned page peeled away like the thin membrane on the skin of an onion, holding intact and leaving the remaining ashes untouched.
Taran laid the sheet in a shallow tray of liquid.
“How long will that take to bleach the ink?” Brannon asked.
Taran shrugged. “I've never done this before. I don't know.”
“Really? And here I thought you were bleaching ash every other day.”
The priest shook his head solemnly as he positioned the tongs to lift another sheet. “No, it's never occurred to me before. Maybe if this works I will.”
Brannon strangled a grin. The young priest's socially awkward ways did make for amusing moments.
Taran laid a second sheet in the tray, then filled another tray with the liquid. His hand trembled as he poured and some of the bleach slopped onto the bench top.
The hidden grin turned into a concerned frown. “Are you okay? You seem a little on edge.”
“Oh yes. I'm, um, just worried about the missing child.”
“Okay.” Brannon watched him continue to separate out another sheet of ash. Taran had always seemed particularly sensitive about the plight of children. They knew very little about the young man's own childhood but being raised in an Assassin House could not have been without trauma. It made sense that there would be some rawness in him still. Especially when the fate of Shalyn was so unknown. He glanced at the peculiar egg he'd brought in from the cobbler's house. It appeared her fate could be even stranger than they had imagined.
A movement at the door caught his attention and Ambassador Ylani stepped into the room. She was beautiful, as always, but her usually serene face had a small crease furrowing her brow. The physician in Brannon wondered if she was suffering a tension headache.
“Ambassador? What brings you here?”
She moved into the light and paused, her lower lip caught in her teeth for a moment. “The monster is coming.”
“What?” Brannon's hand moved to the sword at his side.
“Not now.” Ylani said. “It's just something I heard recently. And now I see you have that.” She pointed to the egg on the table.
“You know what that is?” Brannon frowned.
Ylani took a deep breath before she answered. “It's a chrysalis. And if you found it in Alapra, we're all in danger.”
Chapter Eighteen
King Aldan frowned. “So what exactly did Ambassador Ylani say?”
They were in the king's private quarters. Aldan had dismissed his guards to their posts in the hallway. He sat on a small couch, surrounded by cushions, the red brocade fabric serving to highlight the gold of his hair and beard. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, bringing a lightness to the room that was incongruous with the news Brannon had to tell.
Draeson sat next to the king and both men rolled up their sleeves, pressing the bare flesh of their arms together. Draeson's dragon tattoo unfurled lazily, the skin bulging as it stretched out its neck. Small fangs appeared as the tiny creature opened its mouth and bit down on the king's arm.
Aldan's mouth tightened and he gave a sharp intake of breath.
Brannon looked away. Watching the dragon feed was unnerving. Blood on the battlefield or the physician's operating table were no bother to him, but there was something about the tattoo's hunger for royal blood that made his skin crawl.
There was a tapestry above the couch depicting Valdan, one of the early kings of Kalanon, receiving the crown from a white-haired old man. Black thread picked out the tiny shape of a dragon on the old man's face. That too, was Draeson. Brannon wondered if the mage had commissioned the tapestry to remind subsequent kings of their bargain. A little blood was a small price to pay for the power Draeson brought to protecting the country. The mage was inextricably tied to the royal line. That was a loyalty very few monarchs could boast of.
Natilia stood beside the couch, her hand resting on Draeson's shoulder. Her eyes were wide as she observed the exchange of blood.
“Perhaps the harbor master could give us a moment of privacy,” Brannon suggested.
Draeson shook his head. “Anything you say to me you can say to her. We have no secrets.”
Brannon blinked and raised an eyebrow. “Really? None?”
“It's called being in a relationship, Brannon.”
Brannon and the king exchanged a look. It was hard to believe Draeson had ever known someone he hadn't kept secrets from. “Okay.”
“The ambassador?” Aldan prompted, gesturing with the arm not being gnawed on for Brannon to go on with his report. The dragon tattoo flushed with color like the petals of a flower with its stem in an inkwell.
Brannon paced as he talked. “Ylani says the pod we found is the chrysalis of a frost wolf and if the pod is here, the monster itself must be loose in the city.”
“But that's nonsense,” Aldan said. “Frost wolves are a myth.”
“Apparently not.” Brannon sighed. “We've never had a documented case of one here in Kalanon, but the ambassador swears they are known to be real in Nilar. Hunting parties go out each winter in certain parts of the country to make sure there are none lurking in the caves.”
“And you believe her?”
Brannon shrugged. “She hasn't lied to me yet. Kept secrets, yes, but not an actual lie. And I can't see any reason for her to start now. The mythology matches what we've been seeing—missing children, dead parents, frozen hearts. It fits.”
“So the Hooded One's first servant gone rogue is stalking my city. Brilliant.” Aldan tu
rned to Draeson. “What do you know about frost wolves, magus?”
“Much the same as you do, I imagine. The priests have changed the story a little over the years but kept the essence the same. The Hooded One's closest companion was a wolf and when the Hooded One was killed, the wolf either went mad with grief and anger or tried to take the Hooded One's place and was corrupted by the god's power. Either way, it was transformed into a monster that steals children and freezes the hearts of their parents so that they no longer care.”
“Quite literally, as it turns out,” Brannon said. He stopped pacing next to the king's desk and leaned against the back of the chair tucked under it. “The dead man's heart was turned to glass.”
“And you think there are more missing children than the one attached to the body you're investigating?” Aldan asked.
“Magda claims there are. She's trying to get the families to come forward.”
Aldan shook his head. “I'm still finding it hard to believe they wouldn't report this to the magistrates before now.”
“People do strange things when they don't think there's any hope of help,” Brannon said. “We saw that often enough in the war.”
Aldan looked down at the tattoo feeding on his blood. “Strange things seem fairly common these days.”
“They do at that.”
“Do we think this creature is related to the ones left behind on the gold shipment boat?”
“Taran says no. They live in completely different habitats. But we can't explain why either of them are in Alapra so . . .”
“So anything is possible.”
Brannon nodded.
The dragon tattoo finished feeding and pulled its tiny fangs out of the king's arm, then settled back into the planes of Draeson's skin like a tiny sculpted candy melting in the sun.
The king pressed his hand over the puncture marks to staunch the blood. “And what have you discovered about the missing gold shipment?”
