Gryphon Precinct (Dragon Precinct)

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Frowning, Torin said, “Excuse me?”

  “I was with you until you used the word ‘always.’ True, I’ve mostly trusted your judgment, but that trust took some time to develop. Remember the Smapp case?”

  Torin nodded. That was his and Danthres’s second case together. “I kept insisting that Sir Sheeler be brought in for questioning. You and Danthres both disagreed with me.”

  “Because you had no kind of evidence, certainly not enough to bring in someone as prominent as Sir Sheeler. In fact, I thought you were mad to consider him.”

  “But I was right.” Torin remembered the case well, as it was both Sir and Madam Sheeler who had killed Lin Smapp as part of a bizarre sexual ritual.

  “Eventually, yes, you were able to prove it, but it wasn’t until a few days later when you gathered sufficient evidence that I was willing to let you question a noble on the subject. And then there was the brawl in the Dancing Seagull, where you went against the peel-back.”

  Torin frowned. “I didn’t, I simply said that the person dressed as a sailor wasn’t an actual sailor. I was right about that one, too, he was wearing his brother’s raiments.”

  “And then there was the Kayt case.”

  Shaking his head ruefully, Torin said, “I admit, I was wrong about that one.”

  “You see my point, though? Trust was something you had to earn with me. And, I might add, that in all three of those cases, you continued to follow your instincts despite what I told you, and in the end you and Tresyllione closed all three.”

  “A fair point, but—” Torin threw up his hands in frustration. “In none of those cases did you take me off it—though, as I recall, you threatened to do so in the Smapp case.”

  Osric shrugged. “Sir Gevlin was pressuring me to leave the Sheelers out of the investigation, despite the fact that the victim was obviously known to them.”

  “Of course.” Torin nodded and stared down at the ground for a moment. “We need you back, Osric. You always served as a wall between us and the imbeciles in the nobility. Grovis is one of the imbeciles in the nobility. Danthres may not last a full month.”

  But Osric was shaking his head. “You don’t need me, ban Wyvald. When I first took the job, when I first promoted Tresyllione, when I first brought you in, yes, I would agree with you. Back then, the Castle Guard’s mandate as an investigatory agency was relatively new. And my predecessor had made a troll’s ear out of it. But now? The Guard is bigger than me, bigger than Grovis—bigger even than Albin’s son. You heard the king before the funeral—he’s trying to replicate this in the other large city-states. At this point, even Grovis can’t ruin it.”

  “Perhaps not, but he’s like to try. Especially if he keeps insisting on taking me off cases.”

  “Let me ask you something, ban Wyvald—did Grovis formally order you to stop investigating?”

  Torin thought back to Grovis’s diatribe. “He said that until the victim was found, for Manfred and I to go back into the rotation.”

  Osric’s eye widened. “So they did promote Manfred. Good. I always liked him. Did they promote Kellan, too?”

  Nodding, Torin said, “And Aleta.”

  For the first time since his arrival, Torin saw the trademark Osric scowl, which he had to admit to missing. Osric’s deep scowl was a major component of any conversation with him, and its absence until now was peculiar to say the least. “Why three? Manfred and Kellan replaced Hawk and Grovis, but—”

  “Iaian also retired.”

  “Hah!” The scowl was replaced by a wide-mouthed, nasty laugh. “That mad old hobgoblin actually took a lesser pension? And I don’t get to enjoy it?”

  “Not entirely. Lord Blayk offered him the full twenty-five if he retired now, same as he offered you.”

  “Wish I’d thought of that.” Osric shook his head. “In any case, I’ve never known you or Tresyllione to be swayed by the opinions of people you don’t respect. And over the past several years, I’ve seen nothing to indicate that you respect Grovis’s.”

  Torin smiled. “True.”

  While most of the burly men were loading a chair onto the cart, the burly woman walked over to the pair of them. “’Scuse me, Mr. Osric, sir, but we’re all done-like.”

  “Good, Aeris, thank you. Aeris, this is a former employee of mine, Lieutenant Torin ban Wyvald.”

  “Pleasure, sir.” Aeris gave Torin a brief two-fingered salute.

  “Aeris here runs the Faltang Moving Company.”

  Torin frowned. “I know that name.”

  “Dru and Hawk arrested Mel Faltang for fraud two years ago.”

  Aeris let out a gap-toothed grin. “I was workin’ for ’im at th’time.”

  Osric added, “She was also the main witness.”

  “I went an’ bought the comp’ny so’s Faltang could be payin’ ’is debts off. Last I heard, he was movin’ t’Barlin.” She regarded Torin quizzically. “I don’t suppose you’ll need anyone t’be movin’ nothin’, will you, Lieutenant ban Wyvald, sir?”

  “Not at present, no.” Torin smiled. “But assuming you get everything to Osric’s new home in one piece, I will be sure to get in touch should the need arise.”

  “Very kind of you, sir, thankee.” She went over to the cart. “All right, girls ’n’ boys, let’s get movin’!”

  Osric called out, “I’ll meet you at the house!”

  The woman with the horses grabbed the reins and tugged on them. The horses started to slowly amble forward even as three of the men moved to walk in front of the horses, clearing a path for them. Not that they were moving fast enough to endanger anyone, but it was good to keep the way clear as much as possible.

  As they went off, Torin gave his former commander a grateful nod. “Thank you, Osric. I appreciate you talking me through this.”

  “My pleasure—” Osric smiled. “—Torin.”

  They both chuckled, and Torin said, “Good luck with the move.”

  Torin walked past the cart and headed back toward Meerka Way. It was time to get back to work.

  EIGHT

  At first, Danthres had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do with Javian, besides possibly run him through with her sword. But doing that in the middle of the squadroom in front of Manfred, Kellan, and the guard would be problematic.

  Aleta and Dru walked in shortly after Javian, thus providing more witnesses to her theoretical homicide. They had found the name of their suspect, which Danthres uncharitably assumed to be entirely due to Dru’s efforts. They had a guard bring the newly identified Gobink up from the hole and then Dru showed Aleta how to interact with Ep, the imp who kept the Castle Guard’s files, and then how to change the paperwork to add the suspect’s name.

  There was still a free interview room, so Danthres took Javian in there. This conversation needed to happen in private.

  As soon as Danthres closed the door, Javian asked, “Isn’t this where you question people you think commit a crime?”

  “Yes.” Danthres walked past Javian to stand near the table.

  He regarded her quizzically. “Do you believe I’ve committed a crime?”

  “Some of those we bring in here are people we only suspect of such, and the questions we ask are designed to learn if they are or not.”

  “Well, let’s hope I depart the premises not in chains, then.” Javian leaned against the wall near the lantern that was the room’s only light source. It cast shadows on his elegant cheekbones. “Who told you I was coming to Cliff’s End?”

  Danthres frowned. “Hm?” Then she recalled what she’d said to Javian when he’d entered the squadroom. “An elf named Fanthral.”

  Javian rolled his eyes. “Oh for Wiate’s sake, did that idiot bring his absurd quest for members of the Elf Queen’s court to Cliff’s End?”

  Danthres sighed, annoyed at the memory of Fanthral sweeping through the castle demanding his way. “Yes.”

  “I don’t suppose he found any?”

  “One, but he was already d
ead.”

  Javian grinned his widest smile. Danthres had forgotten how wide-mouthed he was, resulting in a smile that almost seemed to double the width of his face. “Please tell me that he didn’t find a necromancer to animate the elf’s corpse so he could trundle it back to the Consortium?”

  Unable to help herself, Danthres chuckled at the image. “No, but only because he didn’t think of it. Besides, he got in enough hot water with the Brotherhood with the shitstorm he stirred up.”

  “Fitting, since he spent his entire time in Sorlin annoying people.”

  “He did the same here, believe me.” Danthres shook her head. “Dammit!”

  Frowning, Javian asked, “What is it, Thressa?”

  “It’s ‘Danthres.’ Nobody’s called me ‘Thressa’ for twenty years.”

  “To be honest, I don’t think I can possibly refer to you as anything else.”

  “What are you doing here?” Danthres asked angrily. “Why aren’t you in Sorlin running the council?”

  “There is no council, Thressa—sorry, Danthres—and I don’t rule it. With the rise of the Consortium to rule the elven lands, the purity laws were officially revoked. But even before that, the community was already dying.”

  “‘How’s that possible? What did you do to drive people away? Or did you just kick them out like you did me?”

  No longer was there a trace of a smile on Javian’s face, which suited Danthres just fine. She wanted this to be an unpleasant conversation, not the happy reunion she feared it would become if she and Javian retreated into their usual banter.

  He looked away from her. “You were only the third person in Sorlin’s history to be asked to leave, Thressa. And also the last. Since the Elf Queen’s fall, people started leaving of their own volition, wishing to return to their homes.” He turned to look at her with an expression of sadness. It just made Danthres want to punch him. “After the official repealing of the purity laws last year, we had a mass exodus. By the time that idiot Fanthral showed up we were below subsistence levels. The council voted to disband the community, and it passed unanimously.”

  “As head of the council, you could’ve vetoed—”

  “No, I couldn’t have.” Javian walked up to Danthres and put a hand on each shoulder, staring at her intently with those deep blue eyes that came from his elven mother. Indeed, Danthres could remember Shantha giving her the exact same stare when she was a little girl and had done something wrong when she and Javian and Lil were playing together.

  Thinking of Lil just made Danthres angrier, and she shrugged off Javian’s arms and turned away.

  “Thressa,” he said, “I’m not head of the council anymore.”

  “What?”

  The wide smile came back. “Well, technically, nobody is, now.”

  “Javian . . .”

  He grew serious again. “I haven’t been head of the council for twenty years.”

  Danthres’s eyes widened. “Since—?”

  “Yes.” Javian nodded. “The last vote that I supervised was the one to expel you from Sorlin. I resigned from the council chair after that.”

  “Why? You were the best chair Sorlin ever had.”

  He stared at her. “You know why.”

  Danthres looked away, again unwilling to look into those blue eyes.

  She stared instead at the far wall on the other side of the table. “So what happens next?”

  “I was going to take a boat to Saptor Isle to retire. It’s past time, to be honest. Even if Sorlin was still intact, I don’t really have—”

  Danthres whirled around to face him. “I don’t mean what happens next to you. I don’t give a damn what happens next to you,” she lied, “since you don’t seem to care about anything that matters anymore. But what happens next to the people like me, or like Sharr, or like Zeen, or like you? What happens when the Consortium inevitably collapses under the weight of its own idiocy, just like every other pathetic attempt at a government they’ve tried since the end of the war, and it gets replaced by something a lot more hidebound? What happens when the purity laws are reinstated?”

  Javian shrugged. “If that happens, then someone will no doubt found another place very much like Sorlin. But it will have to have someone else to administer it.” He shook his head. “Thressa, after Lil died, I just—I just couldn’t go on. Being forced to expel you was the final line of the spell of discontentment that Lil’s death cast upon me.”

  Danthres glowered at him. “For the record? There are many things about living in Sorlin that I’ve missed these past twenty years. Your pathetic metaphors are not one of them.”

  Javian laughed. “Whereas I have very much missed your bluntness.”

  She pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You’re avoiding the subject, Tharri. What I went through, what we all went through, can’t be allowed to happen again. Remember all the mass graves?”

  Gently, Javian said, “That hasn’t happened in years, Thressa.” Then he smiled. “And it’s good to hear you call me ‘Tharri’ again.”

  “What?” Danthres thought back on her conversation with Javian. “I didn’t.”

  “You absolutely did.” He laughed. “It’s all right, it was good to hear.”

  She couldn’t believe it. Two decades away from her childhood friend, twenty years of hating him and what he had done to her life, and in just a few minutes was back into old habits.

  The only ones who called him “Tharri” were Danthres herself and Lil. Which meant nobody had called him that since Lil died. As far as Danthres was concerned, after that, he was Javian.

  “Look, I’m staying at the Dog and Duck until I can find a boat to book passage on. You should join me for dinner tonight—or tomorrow night, if you can’t do tonight.”

  Danthres’s eyes widened. “How’d you get a room at the Dog and Duck?”

  Javian’s wide smile came back. “I didn’t arrive in Cliff’s End until the day of Lord Albin’s funeral. A rather large number of rooms became available once the, ah, festivities had ended.”

  Shuddering, Danthres said, “Your timing was impeccable. It was worse than midsummer here for the week leading up to the funeral.”

  He turned toward the door, then looked back at Danthres. “I am free to go, yes, Thressa?”

  For a brief, insane moment, Danthres considered arresting him. The fact that she couldn’t even dredge up a fake charge was the only thing that stopped her, and even then she seriously thought about it. Finally, however, she just stared back at him. “Get out of here, Javian.”

  He opened the door and then stopped halfway through the threshold without looking back at her. “You know, Thressa, I’ve really missed you. It was hard enough losing Lil, but losing you right after that—it almost broke me.”

  Danthres snarled. “Then you shouldn’t have kicked me out.”

  That did get Javian to turn back around. “I didn’t kick you out, Thressa. And you know that. You caused the vote, and there was no other way for the vote to go once it was called. Not after what you did.”

  Pointing at the doorway he was standing in, Danthres said, “Will you go away, please, Javian?”

  He took a bow toward her. “Best of luck to you—Lieutenant Tresyllione.” Again, the wide-mouthed smile, and then he left.

  Manfred, who was talking with Kellan, watched him leave and then got up and walked over to Danthres. “Are you all right?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Indicating with his head the doorway to the corridor through which Javian had just left, Manfred asked, “Is he an old lover of yours?”

  Danthres barked a laugh. “I’d sooner have slept with my brother—if I had a brother.” She sighed. “He was the closest I came to one.”

  Both Manfred and Kellan were looking at her expectantly, as if expecting her to go on.

  But she’d said more than she’d intended to either of these two. Her sleeping with Manfred once didn’t entitle him to know the details of her life, nor did Kellan bein
g partnered with her for a single, unproductive day.

  The time chimes rang out nineteen times. When they were done, Danthres let out a long breath. “I’m going home.”

  Without another word she left the squadroom.

  NINE

  Gobink sighed as he was brought up from the basement dungeon to the featureless, windowless room in the eastern wing of the castle for the third time. The room was actually worse than the cell. At least in the dungeons—the locals called it “the hole,” due he supposed to it being underground—you had some notion of the passage of time. The cells themselves had no windows, but the end of the corridor did have one, and the sun cast shadows throughout the day, and occasionally you got glances of moonlight.

  This room, though, just off the Cloaks’ office space, had no connection to the outside unless the door was open, which it never was unless someone was entering or departing. The sole source of light was a single lantern.

  Gobink hated being confined. It was why he spent so much time at sea.

  He wondered if it would be a third set of Cloaks who talked to him this time. Maybe, he’d get the two humans—the half-elf bitch and the snotty elven woman were both really annoying, but they each had a human male partner who was at least tolerable.

  Not that it mattered. He wasn’t going to say a damn thing. Both his debts and his family were taken care of and it didn’t matter if he died. If he hadn’t taken on this job, he’d be dead already.

  The gambling had gotten out of control, this past year. He’d been able to keep it away from his shipmates on the Esmerelda—you didn’t mix business with pleasure, after all—but eventually the debt piled a bit too high. What was worse was that Pyrig found out he was second mate on the Esmerelda, which necessitated a quick and sudden departure. He wasn’t about to risk his crewmates, and Pyrig got nasty when you owed him money.

  Now, though, everything was taken care of. All he had to do was follow orders. It didn’t matter if he was killed, because Gora and the kids would be taken care of. If he hadn’t taken this job, he would’ve died anyhow—Pyrig would’ve killed him. He only hadn’t done so up until now because Gobink had convinced Pyrig that, if Gobink was dead, he’d never pay the debt. But after two months of that, Pyrig told him that he’d rather kill him than have to deal with him anymore.