Dreaming Death

by J. Kathleen Cheney

  Melanna sneaked into Shironne’s room just after lunch. Verinne had unlocked Melanna’s door so she could go down to the kitchen to eat, and Melanna had, rather predictably, slipped away instead. Unfortunately, she’d unlocked Shironne’s door from the hallway and closed it again without once thinking that Shironne might want out. When Shironne went and tried the door, it was locked, leaving both of them trapped.

  “Oh, I’ll just climb down the tree,” Melanna volunteered blithely when Shironne asked how she intended to escape.

  Shironne laid one hand against her sister’s cheek, trying to see the tree Melanna proposed to clamber down. She could recall what that tree had looked like years ago, before she lost her sight, but Melanna’s idea of it was different, overgrown and needing a pruning.

  And Melanna had, fortunately, remembered the task Shironne had set for her. While on the loose, Melanna had gone into Perrin’s not-locked room and pilfered a pair of old house slippers. They would be too big for Shironne’s feet but were better than nothing. Shironne thanked her sister and, as a reward, drew out the novel from under her pillow.

  They spent a long while huddling under the coverlet, hidden behind the bed in case Verinne should peek in. Their heroine continued to fall into trouble every few pages and, too helpless to save herself, relied on her hero to rescue her. The sheer absurdity of it lifted Shironne’s spirits.

  Shironne listened to the clocks and sent a reluctant Melanna on her way before too long. While Shironne listened, fingers clenched in the curtains, Melanna slipped off the balcony into the tree. She whistled when she reached the ground to reassure her older sister, and Shironne let loose a pent breath. She closed the outside door and drew the curtain shut, glad to know that Melanna’s plan had worked again.

  • • •

  The book proved to be an amusing read. Mikael skimmed through the sections dedicated to Stonebreakers and Movers and something else called a Carrier. The Mind Thief, however—the creature that could glean one’s memories and thoughts—was what Deborah had wanted him to see. Mikael doubted she intended for him to take every word of the description seriously, but it sounded worryingly close to what he’d experienced that morning.

  Dahar eyed the book with curiosity, asking about it only after stalking by several times. When Mikael explained the source, Dahar plucked the old book out of his hands and began flipping through the pages. “I wouldn’t give too much credence to Larossan superstition.”

  Dahar found the section Mikael had read and started perusing it. Mikael watched, pained, as Dahar paced about, holding the book out at arm’s length. He wished Dahar would give in and wear his spectacles. He did own a pair.

  “Why are you frowning at me, Mikael?” Dahar asked without glancing in his direction.

  Mikael sometimes forgot Dahar was a sensitive. “I have a headache, sir.”

  “From this morning? Or from this afternoon?”

  “This morning?”

  “While you were off talking to Deborah,” Dahar said in a deceptively mild voice, “I sought out my son, who is loitering in grand estate in his rooms like the master of the damned province. He informed me that I should offer his apologies for hitting you this morning.”

  “Kai was upset,” Mikael said, wishing Kai would render his own apologies. “I questioned Elisabet.”

  “Out of his presence, I take it?”

  “I felt he would interfere if he was there.”

  “He has no right to do so. In fact, he expressed his surprise that you hadn’t told me.”

  Mikael gazed down at the patterned floorcloth in front of his desk, following the traceries of stylized vines. “It was unimportant, sir.”

  “I would like to know what he thinks he’s doing,” Dahar snapped, and slapped the book down on Mikael’s desk. “I would like to know why he’s so bent on protecting that woman, and why you’re so bent on protecting him.”

  Mikael opened his mouth and closed it again, realizing he had absolutely no defense. He had been protecting Kai. Kai was protecting Elisabet, of course. And hadn’t they just spent a day and a half reading files to protect the Andersens?

  “I would like to be kept advised of things that happen in this damned office, Mr. Lee.”

  Mikael stared at him, surprised. Dahar never called him Mr. Lee unless very angry. He never cursed either, but had done so twice in one tirade.

  “I would like to know why my son didn’t mention to me he knew how that woman lost her family. I would like to know why Jon and Deborah have been keeping secrets from me. I would like to know why the sister I have always wanted to meet does not want to meet me and would rather deal with Jon Cerradine as a proxy instead.” Dahar punctuated that by picking up the book and pitching it against the door of the office. It thumped against the wood and fluttered helplessly to the floor.

  “Your headache is bleeding over, Mikael,” Dahar said in a tired voice when Mikael merely stared in response. “Why don’t you go away for a while?”

  I want to leave, Mikael thought suddenly. He wanted to get away from this place, where his moods turned everyone against him and drove them to fury. There was somewhere safe, he knew, if only he could find it.

  “I have a headache,” Mikael whispered, suddenly recognizing the true source of it. “One of those headaches.”

  Dahar turned slowly. “Is it tonight?”

  “Yes,” Mikael told him. “I need to get out of here.”

  Dahar folded his arms over his chest. “You’re not leaving my sight, Mikael.”

  The urge to flee beat along his skin, clearer now that he’d acknowledged it. He slowly reined in his panicked response to the foreknowledge of a dream.

  Dahar went to the door and yelled for a runner. A young woman in a brown uniform appeared in the doorway a moment later. “Fetch Deborah for me,” Dahar told her.

  “Elder Deborah?” she asked with a squeak.

  “Who else?” Dahar yelled at her, laying his hands to his temples.

  The girl paled and ran, ivory braids flying behind her. Not a sensitive, she couldn’t pick up the ambient in the room.

  Mikael settled on the edge of his desk, dreading the night. He closed his eyes, wishing it were over.

  A few minutes later, Deborah burst into the office, her satchel in hand. Her breath sounded strained. She must have run up the stairs to get to the office so quickly. She glanced back and forth between the two of them. “Could you please attempt to send a clearer message next time, Daharion?”

  “Don’t call me that,” Dahar snapped. “I wanted you up here. How much clearer could I be?”

  Deborah laid her satchel on one of the chairs and rubbed her side. “Perhaps you could tell the runner what the nature of the problem might be, Dahar. That would save me a good deal of time and concern.”

  “I have a headache,” Mikael offered.

  “Kai hit you,” she said, coming over to peer into his eyes. “You should expect that.”

  “You heard?” He shouldn’t be surprised.

  “Elisabet told me. She’s rather embarrassed, Mikael.”

  “I doubt she intended to set him on me, ma’am.”

  “No. She’s actually rather fond of you, dear. She wouldn’t want Kai to kill you.”

  Mikael smiled at the notion that Elisabet was fond of him.

  “It is one of those headaches,” Dahar interrupted.

  Deborah stood back, giving Mikael a careful once-over. “Are you sure?”

  Mikael nodded. “I thought it was from this morning, or this afternoon, but I’m sure now.”

  “Then I need to contact Jon and see if we can put his plan into action.” Deborah picked up her satchel. “Please stay here, Mikael, while I get a few things put together. Then you and I can drive out to see Jon.”

  She headed for the door. Dahar glared at her from the upper end of the room. “And
what part do I play in this?”

  Deborah paused and spotted the book on the floor. She picked it up, dusted it off, and handed it to Mikael. She cast a concerned glance in Dahar’s direction. “Please don’t leave the palace, Dahar. We can do this without your being involved.”

  Dahar frowned, nostrils flaring. Mikael thought calm at him, and Dahar glared at Mikael as if to rebuke him for his interference.

  “Please, Dahar. I don’t need to worry about you as well.” Deborah slipped out the door.

  Mikael sat down, resigned to being pinned in this office until Deborah returned for him. She’d probably order the sentries to keep him confined there. She was nothing if not thorough.

  • • •

  Aldassa had stayed late in the office, fretting. He’d been reading through the last of the files and some detail must have set off an alarm in his head. Cerradine joined him at his desk in the main anteroom, quiet now that all the other workers had left.

  “The Andersens believed the priests were all part of the same clan, acting under the orders of someone with the name Ramanet, their high priest,” Aldassa began, turning a single file page over in his hands. “They couldn’t identify all the dead priests, but because he was a government official he was identified. So we can’t be dealing with the same man, but it could easily be one of his surviving followers.”

  “The question would still be, why would they come here?”

  Aldassa settled back behind his desk, putting his booted feet up on it. He laced his fingers over his stomach, puzzling over the question. “Don’t know what the motive was the first time.”

  “Blood magic is generally performed to achieve some purpose,” Cerradine said. “A massacre on the scale of what Ramanet attempted had to have some grand purpose, and I doubt that Ramanet achieved that purpose. He died instead. If they’re trying again, they’re going about it completely differently.”

  “Maybe this is revenge for those nine deaths, and they’ll stop when they’ve gotten nine.”

  Cerradine shook his head. “I don’t want to wait for six more deaths to figure it out.”

  Aldassa steepled his fingers, unconsciously mimicking one of Cerradine’s gestures. “I’ve written that name down before. Ramanet, I mean, sir, or something very close to it.”

  Cerradine tried to dig up any memory of an inquiry where that name had figured. There could be some relative in the city they’d questioned in the course of another investigation. Revelation eluded him, but Aldassa had an excellent memory and would recall it sooner or later.

  A young man with sentry braids and wearing Lucas blacks knocked quietly on the doorframe—a courier. He waited for Cerradine’s acknowledgment and then came forward, bearing a note. Cerradine glanced at it and then handed it over to Aldassa to read. “Go on back, son,” Cerradine told the young man, “and tell her I’m on my way.”

  The courier nodded and headed out the way he’d come.

  “It seems that Mikael is going to be dreaming,” Cerradine said. “I only hope we can get Shironne out of her house.”

  “Will this work, sir?” Aldassa asked.

  Cerradine rose and picked up his hat. “I hope so, or I’ll feel like a complete fool. I need to oversee this myself, David. If I can find some way to make off with Shironne, I at least owe her mother the assurance of my presence.”

  “I’ve some paperwork to review, sir. I’ll stay here and wait for word from you.”

  “No. Go home, David.” Cerradine put his coat over his arm. “There’s no telling how late we’ll be.”

  He left Aldassa reading through old files, his feet up on his desk. Aldassa would probably be there ’til midnight anyway, Cerradine guessed.

  Cerradine’s driver took him to the palace, where he found Deborah in Dahar’s office. She looked agitated. He couldn’t be certain whether worry over Mikael caused it, or having to wait so long in Dahar’s presence.

  “I need to talk to you,” Deborah insisted as soon as he’d stepped through the doorway. She wrapped a hand around his arm and dragged him back out into the hall, closing the door before Dahar had the opportunity to protest.

  She glanced at the sentry in each direction down the hallway, both too far to overhear them. “Mikael thinks someone sifted through his head today. He used exactly that word, Jon, sifted.”

  “Shironne would not have done that.”

  “I don’t think she did. Someone else did. Someone with that same ability is in the city, and now he knows whatever Mikael knows.”

  “We can’t just assume it was our killer,” Cerradine pointed out.

  Deborah sighed. “If it was, if this wasn’t random, then he had to have followed Mikael from your offices to the hotel where the incident happened. Mikael has been the public face of the Daujom on this investigation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shook her head. “They’ve been very selective about their victims. First a Larossan police officer, then a soldier, then a Lucas sentry. They’re working up the ladder of society, and they might be working up to killing an Anvarrid. If the killer sifted through Mikael’s mind, then he could know that Mikael is Anvarrid, despite his appearance.”

  Aldassa had already come out with that theory, and one of the chalkboards in the office had been commandeered to keep track of the betting for the identity of the next victim. Cerradine wasn’t going to tell Deborah that, among many others, Mikael’s name was already on that board.

  “If they were looking for an Anvarrid, Dahar or Kai would serve just as well as Mikael.” That was what she was actually concerned about, that the killers might take part of her family. “We need Mikael to find these people, Deb. Kai won’t be involved. There’s no reason for him to leave palace grounds at all. And I’ll find some excuse to keep Dahar here.”

  “I don’t think so,” Dahar said from behind him. He’d opened the door so quietly that neither of them had noticed.

  Cerradine turned to face Dahar’s wounded expression. “Dahar, we don’t need to be worrying about your safety as well.”

  “I may loan him to you, but Mikael works for me, Jon. You want to do this, I come along.”

  Cerradine didn’t think they had time to negotiate. Darkness would fall soon. So far the killers had struck in the middle of the night, but they’d grabbed Iselin Lucas in the evening and simply held her prisoner. After a brief argument, he gave in to Dahar’s plan to meet them at the tavern. He could come out to the Old Town in a well-guarded coach in perfect safety.

  For his part, Mikael appeared relieved to be escaping the fortress. He sat in the corner of the carriage as they left the grounds, a rare scowl on his face. Cerradine watched the young man count to himself, lips moving slightly.

  He hoped to the heavens that this worked.

  • • •

  Shironne had eaten dinner alone in her room, her agitation building. She recognized it, now that she knew what to look for. It was that headachy feeling that came over her before one of those dreams. She didn’t have a headache, but he did, a constant irritant.

  How was she supposed to see into his dream if she was trapped in this room? Verinne would not allow her to leave with the colonel.

  I have to find some other way.

  She’d had a couple of days to consider an escape. She had Mikael’s oversized gloves and Perrin’s too-large house slippers. She didn’t have a coat, but she did have the heavy brocaded house robe. She would look ridiculous. It was an idiotic plan.

  But she was out of time. She couldn’t wait for her mother to come home and set her free.

  After the second housemaid carried away the dinner tray, Shironne guessed she had ample time to pull off her escape. Verinne would be taking care of Perrin and trying to coax Melanna into a bath.

  Shironne concentrated, mentally sorting out where each person was in the household. Perrin was down in the dr
awing room practicing her dancing, mind counting away, no doubt in time to music played by Verinne, who was close by. Melanna was, surprisingly, there also, horribly irritated but unable to escape Verinne’s watchful eye. Cook and her helpers were in the kitchen, Messine and Pamini out in the stables. The two maids were also in the kitchen, eating their own dinners, no doubt.

  That accounted for everyone.

  She plucked Mikael’s gloves out from under her pillows. She dressed in her old blue tunic, petticoats, and trousers, and then put a second pair of stockings on over the ones she already wore before donning Perrin’s house slippers. She drew on the house robe over her clothes and tightened the belt. The house robe had no pockets, so she took the gloves and stuffed them down the front of her tunic, along with a cloth for her hands. She hoped that the robe’s belt held them in place.

  She drew aside the curtain, opened her balcony door, and stepped outside. The sun had set, so the air touched her face with cold fingers. She grasped the balcony railing with her bare hand. Familiar iron, and, in one spot, the feel of Melanna’s hand. She set her own hand over Melanna’s handprint and reached outward with her other hand. For a moment she flailed about, leaning farther and farther over the rail, finding nothing, but then her hand brushed bark. Oak tree, growing up straight and tall, with that one branch that grew toward the house.

  She took a deep breath, reminding herself it wasn’t that far down. Only a dozen feet or so.

  She had plenty of practice falling.

  She wrapped one hand around that branch, working through Melanna’s memories of the tree again. When she stretched out her other hand, she could feel the second branch, the one Melanna used to lever herself out and onto the first. Shironne said a quick prayer for the true god’s protection and pulled herself up into the tree. She had to hold in a nervous giggle when she got her rump settled onto the branch. Her feet dangled into nothingness.

  I’m not that much heavier than Melanna. I’m not.