Of the Mortal Realm

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  He first attempted to locate Captain Montag, who had been put in charge of Company Four’s remaining men after Captain Feldgrau’s death, but the captains’ office and mess were both empty. He had just decided to find General Norseth, who would be Hansa’s supervisor once he took captainship of Company Four, when the same too-young guard who had greeted him during his nocturnal visit shouted his name.

  “Hansa! Thank Nu—Eh.” He cut off the swear, which could have earned him a formal reprimand had anyone who cared overheard. His anxious posture didn’t change, though. “It’s good you’re here,” he said instead. “We have an emergency.”

  “What’s going on?” Hansa made an effort to ask the question with a straight face, as he thought, What’s going on that you know about?

  “There are rumors of a mancer gathering in the next few days,” the guard said, speaking rapidly in a low voice. “Six men from Company Three went to investigate, including Captain Grash, and never checked back in. General Norseth and Captian Montag are missing now, too, and no one has heard anything from His Eminence Indathrone. I know you were on an assignment for him recently. Do you have any idea what is going on?”

  Two captains and the general missing, plus another five men from Company Three. Hansa doubted it was a coincidence. Had Verte and his cronies killed them all?

  “Is anyone else missing?” Hansa asked, making no effort to conceal the simmering rage he felt as he considered those deaths. It was irrational in part; these were men who would have killed him, Cadmia, Umber, and Lydie without a second thought. But they were also men he had served beside, whose only thought had been to protect the people of Kavet and earn a paycheck to provide for their families. They were ignorant, but ignorance could be fixed. Death couldn’t be.

  The younger guard let out a sound that could only be called a whimper. “I . . . I don’t know, sir. That’s not my . . . I’m not sure who to ask.” Except you, his expression clearly said.

  Hansa nodded, mentally preparing to take control. As he had told Umber, if Verte was planning an assault on the city, the 126 were the best defense Kavet had. If Verte was planning anything less bloody, Hansa being in charge was the best defense the mancers of Kavet had.

  “Where did the captains and general disappear from?” he asked. “Did they go to investigate? Were they on the clock, or in their homes?”

  If Verte had disposed of them when they trespassed on the property he had claimed and intended to protect, Hansa would still hate him for it, but he could also understand. The mancers there couldn’t be faulted for killing someone who would have killed them. On the other hand, if Verte was systematically assassinating the higher-ranked members of the guard, Hansa would need to act to protect those who were left.

  “I don’t know?” the kid answered.

  So late, hopefully not too late, Hansa understood something he hadn’t even stopped to think about until that moment. Verte had left a note to delay the investigation and panic about Indathrone’s death not to cover their escape at that time, but to keep the 126 from realizing there was a problem and mobilizing until he had effectively removed their command structure. He had, most likely, been planning this from the moment they left the Abyss. If not before.

  “Who does know?” Another blank look. “You do work here, don’t you? What company are you in?”

  The guard ducked his head, then lifted it and cleared his throat and reported with a clear voice, “Soldier Gray of Company Four, Captain, sir. I was supposed to start yesterday, but then Captain Montag went missing. I’ve been trying to keep busy while waiting for an official assignment.”

  Yesterday, Hansa thought. He couldn’t blame the young man for being new and confused in that case.

  “Records,” Hansa sighed. “There should be records of any missions. Have you seen the captains from companies two and five?”

  Soldier Gray shook his head.

  “Check the sign-in logs,” Hansa ordered. “If they haven’t signed in today, go to their homes. If they’re there, bring them here to report immediately. Take a half dozen more senior soldiers with you, whoever you find first.” Hansa didn’t have the authority to give such orders, but there seemed to be no one present with the authority to override him, either. If someone was hunting these men, Hansa didn’t want an extra moment to go by before he brought them in to warn them. He also didn’t want to put anyone else in charge of reading records of tips and mission logs that might include more information than Hansa wanted the 126 to have. “In the meantime, I’m going to look at records in the captains’ office.”

  The younger guard jumped to obey, and Hansa turned toward the captains’ office and the massive filing cabinets therein. He wished he had any idea how they were organized.

  He started searching first for recent missions, then changed his mind and went looking for a basic duty roster instead. He needed to establish how many men were missing.

  Looking at the roster for Company Four made Hansa’s eyes water. There were two new names at the bottom, including Gray’s, but it also still included eleven black marks, striking out good men.

  Hansa’s own name had been crossed out in red ink, with a note added of, Arrested for treason, conspiracy, sorcery, aiding and abetting a mancer, and serving as an accomplice to eleven counts of murder.

  There was another note below, where his name had been returned to the list, saying simply, Cleared of all charges. It might as well have said, Just kidding! Or maybe, Oops! If we hadn’t messed that one up, maybe we wouldn’t have a homicidal ex-prince hunting down our senior officers!

  Despite dealing with mancers, losses to the guard were relatively rare. Disasters like what had happened with Dioxazine and Alizarin—and, apparently, Umber’s mother—were almost unheard of.

  “Hansa?” He looked up as Rinnman, a career-soldier who had stepped down as a lieutenant in Company Three due to a severe knee injury that left him relying on a crutch, said his name. Rinnman’s temperament was decidedly more even than Gray’s. “There’s someone asking to see you.”

  “Show him in.”

  “It’s a her, sir,” Rinnman replied. “That old A’hknet bat from the market.”

  “Oh . . . her,” Hansa sighed, bracing himself for an encounter from the elderly lady most Order of A’hknet followers knew as Mother Avignon, and most soldiers knew as a pain in the ass. The last time he had spoken to her, she had been giving him and Jenkins a hard time about borrowing her cart so they could lug an unconscious Abyssumancer back to the cells.

  If she hadn’t argued with them, that Abyssumancer might have remained unconscious long enough for them to get him safely locked away.

  Don’t think of that just now, he told himself. They were courting allies from the Order of A’hknet. Having Mother Avignon come here was probably a good sign.

  The lady Avignon looked back to where Rinnman was waiting at attention in the doorway. “Can we shut the door?”

  Hansa nodded. Rinnman discreetly stepped out of the room and closed the door behind himself.

  Once that was done, the old woman asked, “Mind if I sit? The cold gets to my back something fierce.”

  “Go ahead.”

  She lowered herself with agonizing slowness into the chair in the far corner as Hansa took a breath in, reminding himself again that despite his instinctive irritation with her based on previous encounters, she wouldn’t have bothered to come to the compound just to give him a hard time.

  “I heard a disquieting rumor,” she said.

  She paused, long enough Hansa suspected she was hoping to find out what he already knew before she spoke. Unfortunately, there were a great many possible disquieting rumors that might be around, some more or less hazardous to Hansa’s health. He schooled his face to blandness. “Oh?”

  For a while she stared at him. He cleared his throat, and she jumped.

  “I’m sure you know that Rose is very dear to me. Like a daughter, almost. I believe you know her as well.” She said the words almost idly,
but they clearly had a deeper meaning intended, one he wasn’t likely to miss. Hansa hadn’t forgotten the woman who had told him how to summon Umber and demand a second boon.

  He wondered how much she had shared with this old woman.

  “I hope she’s well,” he said, his voice neutral. He wasn’t about to incriminate himself while sitting in the captains’ office in the Quinacridone Compound.

  Another tsk of disappointment. “Are you even going to ask me about the rumor?”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “I want a written declaration of immunity,” she said. At his expression, she added, “I’ve broken no . . . major . . . laws. I’ve hurt no one. My crimes against the Quin are all intellectual. Not that it makes a difference these days.”

  “I can give you my word that I have no desire to persecute someone for ‘intellectual’ crimes,” Hansa said honestly. Or for most actual crimes. “And since you surely know that any written contract could be made to disappear in this establishment as if it never existed, my word should mean more to you than such a written declaration would. Especially if you are such a close friend of Rose’s, and you and she have spoken recently.”

  Rose knew that the second boon to Umber had been far from the end of his meddling with magic.

  The old woman paused to consider those words, and finally nodded.

  “Some of the small-magic users among the Order of A’hknet have been contacted recently,” she said. “Just some of them, of course. I suspect those being ignored are the frauds and charlatans with magic tricks instead of real magic. But never mind that. There is word of a meeting.”

  Hansa nodded slowly. “Do you have any details?”

  She cleared her throat. “I suspect you already know of it. What I want to know is if it’s true that Terre Verte is the one holding it.” Despite his efforts, Hansa’s face must have revealed something. The woman’s face paled. “The Terre. He’s alive? How is that possible? The man must be a century old, for one thing, and that’s ignoring the fact that half of Kavet watched him die.” She paused. “Twice.”

  I’m an idiot.

  Again. How often did this conclusion come to him?

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, considering again how old this hunched lady must be. “You knew Verte?”

  “There aren’t many of us around now who were old enough to remember and understand those days,” she said. “What we went through is the kind of trial that tends to shorten the life span as well as the memory, and it’s been illegal to talk about any of it in the years since. But you don’t forget seeing your prince’s blood splashed across the cobbles like . . . well, like I imagine you must have seen when Jenkins was slain.”

  The blunt description, in addition to the implication, was enough to make Hansa tense. They had met Verte in the Abyss; they had been told he had been resurrected. Hansa had never stopped to wonder how he had died.

  “Please. Tell me whatever you know.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You tell me first—is it true? And if it is true, how is he back in this world? The dead don’t just come back, and even if they drift across to where a necromancer can see them, reanimating them in mortal form is nearly impossible. One necromancer told me it might be possible to bind a spirit to a dead body, even if that body wasn’t the spirit’s own flesh, but he didn’t have much hope for it even if the spirit wasn’t three score years lost to the Abyss.” The more she spoke, the more soft and rapid her speech became, until Hansa found himself leaning forward to listen.

  “I want to have this conversation, but I think we should do so somewhere else,” Hansa suggested, all too aware of Rinnman standing outside the door, and Gray scrambling to find as many ranked officers as he could.

  “I agree,” Mother Avignon agreed. “It shouldn’t be anywhere at the docks, either. My children all like to eavesdrop, and will note who I meet with.”

  “The Drunken Horse,” Hansa suggested. The casual restaurant was respectable enough for no one to question Hansa or Cadmia going there, and specialized in private rooms with large tables, which were popular for impromptu celebrations and gatherings.

  The old woman nodded. “An hour before sunset?” she suggested.

  “We’ll be there.”

  She noted the plural with a raised brow, but didn’t question it. Instead she stood, the process appearing twice as painful as sitting had. Hansa walked around the desk to offer her a hand, but she waved him off. “The scars ache in the cold,” she said. “Especially the brand.”

  “It occurs to me I don’t know your full name?” Hansa admitted as he saw the woman to the door.

  “Ginger Avignon,” she said. “Or Ginger Cremnitz, among some of the order who insist on using my maiden name.”

  She scowled at their impertinence, which might have amused Hansa if the name hadn’t startled him. He had seen it quite recently, on a manuscript sought by Terre Verte. Only there, it had called her Ginger Cremnitz of the Quinacridone.

  “Yes?” she said, seeing the surprise in his face.

  He shook his head. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  “This evening,” she confirmed, before adding in an almost-absent way, “That should give you time to talk it over with Cadmia and the spawn, and whoever else you’re associating with these days.”

  Chapter 24

  Cadmia

  After a frustrating day at the Cobalt Hall, aggravated by her worry over Alizarin, Cadmia was happy to get a message from Hansa telling her they were all going to meet at the Drunken Horse for supper.

  When she arrived, she found Umber lounging against the outer wall chatting with a passing flower-seller. He glanced up and met her gaze briefly, nodded toward the door, then looked away without further acknowledgement.

  Assuming he had his reasons, Cadmia followed his lead and stepped inside. The hostess recognized her, greeted her warmly by name, and informed her that the others for her meeting hadn’t arrived yet but a private table had been reserved and she was welcome to sit.

  Interesting.

  The hostess was wrong. One of her dinner party had arrived—as Cadmia closed the door behind herself, she saw Alizarin on the opposite side of the room playing idly with the flame of an oil lamp, which danced cobalt whenever he blew a trickle of breath on it.

  He turned to her with a grin and she tossed herself into his arms, exclaiming, “Are you all right?”

  He snugged his arms and tail around her and she leaned against him, hungry for the feel of his body against hers even though it had only been a few hours. Dear Numen, sometimes she felt like she was turning into an Abyssi, while Alizarin was becoming more and more human.

  “I looked for you at the house first and Umber told me to come here,” Alizarin said.

  His color had improved since he had first bitten the apple—Cadmia hadn’t realized his fur could change color until it went a strange pale green color—but his ears and tail still drooped and the lines of his face held an expression of deep disappointment.

  “You seem sad,” she observed.

  “I wanted an apple.”

  “Because we were talking about them?” Alizarin had never expressed interest in human food, disdaining it all as dirt. Cadmia had accepted that as part of his personality even before realizing that he was apparently physically incapable of swallowing fruit.

  He shook his head.

  “Rin, honey, you look like you’re thinking a whole lot. Is there something you want to talk about?”

  He paused to try to puzzle out his thoughts, but after a minute again said only, “I wanted an apple,” in a small voice.

  When the door opened next, Cadmia pulled back hastily, trying not to look like she was talking to and snuggling with an invisible figure. Thankfully, it was just Hansa, who dropped heavily into a chair with a sigh.

  “I feel better than yesterday,” he announced, “but I’m still worn-out. Thanks for coming, Cadmia. Did Umber tell you why?”

  “He said we were meeting with
someone from the Order of A’hknet.” Umber had apparently visited Hansa at lunch and received the news then; he had passed it on to her.

  Hansa nodded. “Ginger Avignon, or Ginger Cremnitz as she used to be called.”

  Cadmia knew Mother; of course she did. She had even known her first, last and maiden name, but had heard them used so rarely she never connected them to the names written in clean black ink until Hansa said them with such weight.

  “Umber and Lydie are checking the perimeter to make sure the Order isn’t planning anything unpleasant,” Hansa continued. “The last time there was any hint of sorcery near Mother Avignon, you’ll remember, another member of her order instantly ran to the One-Twenty-Six.”

  “To me, actually,” Cadmia said, feeling her mouth twist at the recollection. “How are things at the Quin Compound?”

  Hansa let out a half sigh, half growl. “I left two captains with orders to sleep at the compound until we figure out what happened to the rest of them, which raised all sorts of questions about why it was safe for me to leave on my own. Thankfully I seem to have been jumped from lieutenant to general, so no one’s going to overrule me.” He scrubbed a palm over his jaw. “I also left men in charge of determining what applicants were being considered to fill vacant spots, and, in the most morbid thing I had to do today, I assigned four men to start discreetly looking into President Indathrone’s whereabouts.” He looked up at Alizarin. “They won’t find anything, right?”

  The Abyssi, who had gone back to exploring the room when Cadmia had turned away, shook his head. Hansa had wanted to double-check for surety’s sake, but he hadn’t been overly concerned; if Alizarin said the body was gone, it was gone.

  He did, however seem concerned as Alizarin picked up a ceramic dish shaped like a beehive from the center of the table.

  “Please don’t do that again,” he said. The Abyss’s tail drooped. “Are you craving human food lately, or are you just bored?”