Exiled: Keeper of the City

by Peter Morwood

  She turned and ran out again.

  Reswen went out right behind her, swearing.

  SHE HAD been about her business, away from her body, watching all things develop as she had ordered—and then it happened. Something violated her wards.

  Her body had its instructions in such cases: immediate return, painful though it was. The tenuous cord that connected her overself to the hardest skin yanked her back and out of the golden warmth of the overworld, into the cold harsh unyielding shell that was all she had to wear in the physical realms. It was at times like this that she hated physicality, hated the rough edges of it, the crassness and indelicacy of it, its lack of subtlety. But pulled back like this, tumbled over and over, dragging protesting through the aether, to slam down into the hard-skinned shell—this made her curse with her people’s curses, and the sound was terrible to hear.

  She had not been back for a long time. The body was sluggish in responding. Her outrage lent it no impetus toward its awakening. There was something still here, something using magic, vermin’s magic, pitiful little art that it was, and she could not immediately reach up and hook it down from its perch and slay it—

  Scrambling noises, scratching sounds. It had seen her.

  Or perhaps not, perhaps something else had frightened it. No matter. She would give it something to be frightened of—

  Her body still would not answer her. No matter; in it, she commanded other levels of magic. Her semblance rose up in fire to swirl about her hiding-place and look about her for the intruder, to strike it dead.

  But there was nothing to be seen—

  She swore again, in a torrent of hissing. She knew the spell, and also knew that there was nothing that could be done about it. No doubt now; the vermin-wizard had come prepared, had suspected her presence. It never occurred to her, at any point, to accuse herself of her own folly in having taunted the creature, sleeping and waking—for this was certainly the same one she had taken such pleasure in tormenting. But she would make it pay, soon or late. Sooner or later the creature would sleep, and warded or not, she would have her way with it. It would take a long time dying, the creature would, and she would relish its screams, every one.

  Meanwhile, there were other concerns. She recalled the fire-form, then reached out in mind to the one pet she deigned to speak to. Hasten, she said, and ran fire down its bones to impress it with the need to hurry. Be about the spell, or it will be the worse for you. Find the other and begin. I am watching. Indeed, she had to be; without her assistance, the two could never manage to bring through the power whose assistance her masters desired. That was one of the things about this mission that had angered her, that her people’s own magic was in this one area insufficient. It took vermin to do it—so her masters had insisted. She had not argued with them ... not then, at least ... and she would not, now. But after the spell was done, she was minded to take matters into her own claws, and show her masters and these vermin alike what real destruction was....

  Go! she cried to the vermin, who still abased itself, listening to her. It fled, moaning in pain and fear. She settled down into herself again, half of a mind to leave her body again. She was coming to loathe it, the immobile, ungraceful hulk. But no. She would remain it in just long enough to see her will done. And then ...

  Fire everywhere, and blood in rivers.

  •

  Reswen went to Haven and was greeted, if that was the word, by Hiriv. The priest was far gone, wailing and moaning in a way guaranteed to wake up the immediate neighborhood at such an awful hour, well past middle night. Reswen found all the noise and anguish hard to understand, though he said nothing out loud. He ought to be reasoning that the city could always give him another stone and another bottle of water, Reswen thought. Or is he thinking that someone might be urging the Arpekh otherwise? Or more to the point, would it simply take too long? Is something going to happen for which he requires the stuff right away?

  Or, he thought then, is this actually a blind to distract us? Has he already passed the stone and water on to someone at the Lloahairi Embassy—our friend Masejih, perhaps?

  And if not, then whose was that water that Thabe saw there? If it was water at all—

  There were too many questions going around in his head, and not nearly enough data to begin answering them. Reswen put them all to rest for the moment by beginning to conduct a standard investigation for theft, having all the rooms checked by the constables he had brought with him, touring the rooms with Hiriv to make sure of where the stone and water had been, verifying that they had not merely been misplaced. Hiriv showed him a cupboard and told him that things had been locked in there when he left for the party. He always, he said, kept the key around his neck. Reswen knew this was true—the key was a courtesy to visitors who had goods they wanted to keep locked up. But he also knew that Hiriv was lying about the stone and water having been in there, since his staff had a duplicate of the key, and the cupboard had been checked several times in the past couple of days by the “cleaning staff.”

  At the end of the check, they found nothing. “Good priest,” Reswen said, thinking privately that in Hiriv’s case the terms were antithetical, “I will need a list of everyone who came here today, and of all of your staff who left for whatever reason, and where they went.” It would make interesting reading, Reswen thought, checking it against the one the Haven staff and the people down in the cellar would be compiling for him under Krruth’s guidance.

  “You shall have anything you want,” Hiriv said, sounding very desperate indeed. “Only find them again for me. My head will answer for it, back East, if you don’t.”

  Reswen bowed, his best bow of reassurance, and Hiriv swept off, still more or less tearing his fur.

  Then Reswen called his people together out front in the courtyard and gave them their instructions, well away from the Easterners’ ears. “I want you all to be very busy here,” he said. “Do what you like, but keep this place a-bustle as late as you can. They want an investigation; investigate them. Ask every stupid question you can think of, practice your interrogation technique—no knives, Gishitha, you wipe that look off your face. Turn the place inside out and upside down. I want them to think we’re running mad for their sakes. I want you to seem like a hundred constables instead of twenty. While you’re at it, keep your eyes on these people. I want to know where they go, what they do. One exception: Should the lady Laas turn up, give her this immediately”—he handed one of them a folded note—“and give her whatever assistance she requires. She’s working inside for us, my dears, so stop looking at Old Ginger as if he’s gone into his dotage at last.” There was some much-subdued snickering at this. “All right? Be about it, then.”

  They went about it, leaving Reswen in the lamplight by the front gates. He grinned to himself, and it was not a pleasant expression. It’ll be awhile before anyone leaves the place, he thought. Time enough to go home and change. Then I want to find Lorin. And then ...

  Reswen went off, smiling still, and melted into the darkness. It had been awhile since he’d had a good night’s field work, and this one promised to be more interesting than most.

  •

  It was late when Laas awoke. Everything was very still with the quiet of late night in a sleeping house. The party was apparently over, the guests all gone. She turned over sleepily, and found the other side of the couch empty.

  She yawned, stretched, sat up in the darkened room. Her evening with what’s his name, Masejih, had been enjoyable enough, as she’d thought it would be; otherwise, nothing spectacular. Certainly not, in comparison with Reswen ...

  Laas glanced around the room, splendidly but rather shabbily furnished, like the rest of the place. Now what would he be doing, so late at night? Relieving himself, perhaps— But she put out her paw and touched his side of the couch, and found it quite cold. Not that. Well then, I will find out. That’s what all this is about, anyway...
.

  She shut her eyes for a moment and felt for him. This was not always easy; after sex, the attachment of the “claw” of her mind in a subject’s sometimes weakened. But more usually there was a trace of a bond remaining, enough to lure the subject back if she wanted him again. The bond could serve as a directional sense, in a vague way. It did so now. He was somewhere in the area, thought not close. Not on this floor, certainly.

  Laas got up, dressed—easier to explain that she was going home, if someone should come upon her—and slipped to the door, eased it open, peered out into the dark corridor. Nothing. Faintly, intruding on her sense of Masejih, she could get a less intrusive sense of Maikej, across the hall, perhaps, very much awake, very much frustrated. She shrugged her tail gently and padded out into the hall, shutting the door silently behind her.

  At the head of the stairs she paused. Down, the sense said, so down she went. The feeling of lazy, blurred fulfillment got stronger. The hall was silent, dark, the drapes all pulled. Only the faintest light streamed up into it from a torch fixed somewhere down the second flight of stairs, the one to the basement. Laas turned and went down that flight. The torch was not actually fastened there, but somewhere further down yet. Its reflected light shone on the wall as she went down.

  Cellars, she thought. I’ll never get used to them. Especially at night.

  At the bottom of the second flight she paused and looked around her. Where there should have been a flat wall, there was a doorway, and it stood ajar. Laas peered through it. The torch was fastened inside, by an iron bracket, to a wall that looked to be of rough stones embedded in smaller stones and dirt. Steps of slate went further down. A cool damp air breathed up them, slipped past her hind paws, and chilled them.

  Laas hesitated.

  But then; she thought, this is what I came to do … and what Reswen needs to find out.

  In utter silence she eased the door open enough to take her body, pulled it back as it had been, and slipped down the stairs, around a corner from the torch, and into shadow.... .

  •

  The only advantage to the reduced police force around the Lloahairi embassy was that they were forced to use their own people for security, and their own people were not very good. They didn’t like staying up late at night, and their watch slacked off considerably then. They also seemed to have that regrettable tendency of temporary security people to believe that they are really unnecessary, that they’re being paid for someone’s paranoia, and that no one would really try to come in that window.

  Reswen found this a delightful tendency, and one he intended to exploit to its fullest. He crouched under the far side of the blank back wall of the Lloahairi Embassy’s garden, breathing the sweet cool night air and thinking cheerfully wicked thoughts. No one was patrolling outside this wall; an oversight, but an understandable one, since the Lloahairi in general were uncertain about their welcome in town, and some of their forces posted here some days back had been set upon by townmrem and beaten up fairly severely. Reswen would not have admitted to encouraging such behavior, of course, but he had had a small conversation with the division-level constable who handled this area, and both of them together, in making up the duty patrol rosters, had forgotten to post any policemrem at all in the area. Careless of us ...

  He was perfectly in his element, as happy as he could remember being for a long time. Reswen had first achieved his reputation in the constabulary by inspired “lurking and skulking,” as his commanding auncient had called it. He hadn’t lost the talent. He could still move like a shadow when he wanted to, and the black hair dye he had used on Laas had more than one use. Now, instead of ginger fur, no torch would find anything of him but darkness. He was all in dark street clothes, an overcloak and tunic that looked unassuming enough at first glance, but would reflect no light whatsoever. At Reswen’s belt, the bottom of the sheath tied round his leg with a thong, hung the rose-and-gold knife, for luck, and also because it had one of the wickedest edges he had ever seen on a piece of cutlery.

  Behind him crouched Lorin, in his own ragged dark cloak, muttering softly to himself. “Oh, be still,” Reswen said for about the tenth time. “We’ll be fine.”

  “This is illegal,” Lorin muttered.

  “You’re with the chief of police,” Reswen whispered. “It’ll be fine.”

  “Not as far as the Arpekh are concerned. And we have other problems.”

  Reswen breathed out and put the thought of the Arpekh far from him. It was a good thing the old mrem hated to be waked up for what they considered insufficient cause; otherwise, he would probably have to be with them now, in late session, answering stupid questions, rather than ready to go over a wall and break into diplomatically protected ground. But then again, he was the one who usually decided whether the cause was sufficient....

  At least, I am for the moment. Who knows whether I still will be in the morning? Mraal’s last meeting with him came up for consideration, and Reswen had to push that unsettling memory away too. Never mind that. As for Lorin’s “other problems,” about which he had babbled when Reswen first picked him up, they would have to wait. He had a lot of trouble believing that Lorin had seen anything that wasn’t a product of his own nerves. Anyway, one thing at a time—

  “You ready?” he said softly to Lorin.

  “Of course not, what a stupid—”

  Reswen ignored him, half rose from his crouch in shadow, and threw the clawhook over the wall. There was the softest chunk as it fell against the wall’s opposite side, then a soft ratchety noise as he pulled on the cord to snug it in place under the wall’s top course. Reswen tested it, gently at first, then with a good hard pull, and there was no slippage. “Come on,” he said, and went up the rope.

  For all that Lorin was a good climber, this was another matter. It was apparently a deal too far from the ground for him. Finally Reswen, perched on top of the wall, had had to reach down and pull him up by the arms. Lorin clutched the top of the wall, wild-eyed, like a kit afraid of falling from a height. “Come on, come on,” Reswen said, ready to jump down, and realized from Lorin’s frozen posture that the poor mrem was afraid of heights. And at a moment when delay could be fatal, with the two of them perhaps silhouetted against some chance light. Under the circumstances he did the kindest thing possible: He pushed Lorin off. It all happened so suddenly that Lorin had no time to do anything but grunt when he hit the ground. It’s not as if it was more than twice my height, Reswen thought, a little guiltily, and jumped after.

  When he landed, Lorin was saying astonishing things under his breath. “Oh, shut up,” Reswen said, and glanced around them.

  The garden was as deserted as it ought to be, this time of night. They had come down in a mercifully concealing patch of spikeweed, some parts of which had speared them in passing: Lorin was pulling one particularly impressive sliver of the stuff out of his right haunch. Reswen looked out between the wide leaves. Nothing but a perfectly mowed sward, a small formal herb garden, some tables set about on a paved belvedere, and then the house itself, its galleries dark. A few windows were open, probably due to the heat. Reswen smiled.

  “There,” he whispered, pointing to one of them that was fairly easy of access, up a trellis heavily covered with vines.

  “You want me to climb up there??”

  “Anymrem old enough to have his eyes open could manage it. And besides, from what you were telling me, you’ve had a nice warmup for your climbing already tonight. Come on, we can’t sit here forever!”

  They slipped across the empty garden, Lorin limping slightly from where the spikeweed had caught him in the pad of one hind paw. Under the trellis Reswen paused, looked up, and then said to Lorin, “You first.”

  Lorin snorted very softly. “You’re just afraid I’ll come to my senses halfway up and go off and leave you.”

  “You’d never do a thing like that. Especially with me to catch you if you f
all.”

  Lorin growled softly in his throat and began to climb.

  To do him justice, Reswen thought, he was better with vines than with ropes, and he resolutely refused to look down ... which was probably wise. Once Lorin was almost level with the floor of the gallery that ran past the rooms, Reswen yanked on Lorin’s leg’ to make him stop, then clambered up beside him as quietly as he could.

  The window that was open was actually a large glassed door, about halfway ajar. Inside, hangings stirred in a slight flow of air out of the room. Reswen hoisted himself up with utmost care between two of the balusters, then came to his hind paws and balanced there silently, out of direct sight of whoever might be in the room. He glanced down. Lorin was hanging on grimly, nothing but eyes and ears showing over the massed foliage. He gestured him up, made a “But softly!” gesture, and turned toward the door.

  Reswen listened hard. No sound. No, wait: sound, but very slight. Snoring?

  Lorin came up behind him with only a slight thump. There was a catch in the snoring. Reswen froze, glancing at Lorin. Lorin’s eyes were wide with fear.

  The sound steadied again. Reswen leaned around the open door to peer in. There was nothing to be seen but the dark shapes of furniture, clothes thrown over a chair or two, a huge bed with a canopy. In the middle of the bed, amid a welter of the bedclothes, lay the source of the sound. A particularly loud snore rose up, caught on itself, expired in a wheeze.

  Come on, Reswen motioned, and stepped into the room. Once in, he paused just long enough to let his eyes get used to the deeper darkness. There was a faint scent of nightflower in the air. Now let’s see ... where’s the door ...?