Shadowrun - [Earthdawn 05] - Shroud of Madness

by Carl Sargent, Marc Gascoigne (v0. 9) (epub)

  The elf looked around carefully. The furnishings were fairly sparse, though well cared for; polish was not a commodity in short supply in this household. But the trappings spoke of a modest living, with no hint of excess income. Ziraldesh probably had to manage his means carefully, Cassian thought. But had House Narlanth still enjoyed the trading rights they'd once claimed, it would surely not be so.

  Ziraldesh arrived at the doorway, clad in plain brown. His hair looked just washed, lustrous and thick for his years. The frame of the doorway seemed almost to exaggerate his height, though he was tall in any event.

  I lis thin features wore a frown, but also a look of near-resignation. He had obviously expected the visit, probably sooner than it had ultimately come.

  "I trust your wife is bearing up well?" Cassian inquired politely.

  "She is resting after a midday meal," the wizard said carefully. Nothing in his voice suggested that he knew of Shusala's meeting with Cassian; there was little or no emotion in his voice.

  "Good. Well, I shan't need much of your time. I'm sure you must be busy. By the way, may I inquire what it is exactly that you do?"

  "Tutoring, mostly. Sons and daughters of the rich and some hours at the college. A little translation work now and again. Whatever I can find, more or less."

  "It sounds somewhat insecure," the elf said smoothly.

  "There are lean times and fatter years," the wizard replied, quite impassively.

  Cassian decided to play his first card. "It must have been unfortunate for you to find it necessary to divest yourself of property so regularly these last few years," he murmured. Ziraldesh blanched and struggled to regain his composure.

  "There have been expenses to meet," he tried to bluff. "My son suffered ill-health repeatedly. When he was young, I mean."

  "Your son?"

  "I think of him as my son," Ziraldesh said defiantly.

  This is nonsense, Cassian thought. With the best will in the world, not to mention a magnanimous heart, no human could look upon a young elf as his own son. It was just not possible.

  "I trust, then, that Aralesh has left you something in his will, since you are his executor," Cassian said.

  "What are you suggesting?" the wizard snapped angrily.

  "Nothing." Cassian held out his hands as if to say he was hiding nothing. "Simply that if Aralesh trusted you enough to name you executor, one might assume you two were reasonably close. And given also your bond of family and House—it would also suggest that surely he must have left you something."

  "You know damn well what he left me," the wizard snapped. "The will is in the House of Records where anybody can look it up. Well, my family has some secure years ahead, I'm glad to say. It was the least the evil bastard could do."

  Cassian was intrigued. It might muddy the waters further for him to play another card, but he had the wizard on the defensive now and he wanted to throw him off guard utterly.

  "If only the matter of Daralec's will were so simple— oh, I'm sorry! Daralec, Aralesh, the names are so similar, it's easy to get them mixed up."

  "What on earth are you on about?" Now Ziraldesh was shaking, there was no doubt about it. He had gone as white as the proverbial sheet.

  "Who would you recommend as the better of the ele-mentalists residing in this city?"

  "What?" Ziraldesh was now confused beyond rational thought, but Cassian knew the bolt had missed its mark. Whatever the man was concealing, it had nothing to do with elementalism. If he had any association with the woman who had murdered Crielle the night before, it was not a simple one.

  "Well, no mind," Cassian retreated. "Let me offer some points to you. You had no love for Daralec the stone merchant, and you have just described Aralesh to me as an evil bastard. Your father lost your inheritance to Daralec, who dwelt in Marac before ever coming to Vivane. But the tax and tithing records of this city show that you were abroad for two years immediately prior to Daralec's arrival. What took you to Marac?"

  "Never been there/' Ziraldesh blustered.

  "Don't be a fool, man. A kedate has my orders to present himself on an airship traveling there via Thera this very evening," Cassian said firmly. "It will be only a matter of days before this messenger brings me the truth. If you have just lied, you had best make amends swiftly or I shall make formal record of your duplicity in my report. That could lead to your impeachment from the conclave, and loss of face for Narlanth. You will be an outcast in your own home."

  The wizard sagged and nearly collapsed. Cassian had to get up and help him to a chair. To his credit, the man did not weep, but swallowed hard and tried to summon up his courage.

  "As for—look, why did you ask me about elementalists?" Ziraldesh clutched at the one straw that might divert the praetor long enough for him to focus his thoughts and marshal his defenses again.

  "That is of no matter—yet," Cassian said, emphasizing the last word. It deferred the wizard's option of pursuing that line of conversation. The elf hoped he wouldn't have to get around to it at all.

  "Now, why is Aralesh an evil bastard? He is your cousin. You lived within a stone's throw, near enough, for the best part of twenty years."

  "I was being unfair," Ziraldesh protested quickly. "The truth is, I suspected him of certain unwise involvements. Unwise for a wizard, that is. I believe he dabbled in certain matters he claimed only to study by reading."

  "You thought he trafficked with Horrors."

  "I did, yes. But I took everything.. .the best of his grimoires and books that I could lay my hands on, and I could find no evidence for that."

  Cassian believed him, but he could see that Ziraldesh was still deeply anxious about something concerning Aralesh. There was obviously much more to all this. He shifted tack again, probing for a sustained advantage.

  "Daralec killed your father."

  "Yes, he did." Ziraldesh seemed unburdened by what he said, almost as though it were a confession of some wrongdoing of his own. That did not make sense to Cassian. "Nothing could ever be proved. I had no recourse to justice. I'm glad the swine's dead. I'm sorry, but I'm even glad his son died too. It seems like some kind of blood justice for my father's death."

  "You met Daralec in Marac," Cassian pressed him.

  "I met him a few times," Ziraldesh said slowly, his guard up once more.

  "More than that," Cassian insisted. The relieved reaction from Ziraldesh had, just had, to be concealing more. "You knew him well enough to talk of your father's trade. Daralec must have schemed to get the rights to Vivane's stone trade in part because of what you told him." It was a wild shot, and again it missed.

  "That's true," Ziraldesh said far too rapidly.

  "And you have been living as husband to the daughter of a man who murdered your father?" Cassian said incredulously.

  Ziraldesh hesitated and did not speak for a long time. "I love my wife very much," he said at last, quietly and with dignity.

  "Yes, I think you do," Cassian said. "Enough to stay your hand against her murdering father, for her sake? Then you must." But something was desperately wrong here still, and Cassian knew it. He was stymied; the barbs he had expected to strike home had failed too often to win him the decisive advantage. Now he was truly puzzled. His only recourse would be further travels, and investigations further afield.

  He had one final bolt left to fire as he got up to leave.

  "Daralec was no Maracian, of course," he said smoothly. "I've seen more than one portrait of him. Far too light of skin. However, your wife does have a very definite Maracian coloring. I find that most interesting."

  Hearing those words, all the blood drained from Ziraldesh's face and he remained mute, not daring to even look at the elf. So distressed was he that Ziraldesh could not even manage to rise from his chair to do the courtesy of showing Cassian out.

  Most revealing, Cassian thought. The obvious conclusion was that Daralec's first wife was Maracian and that his daughter took her coloring from her mother. Nothing at all untoward ab
out that. So why does he look as if I have struck him a mortal blow?

  My kedate will find out for me. Now I had better requisition that chariot, and see if I cannot catch up with K'keelifa's ship at its overnight mooring. With any luck, I can be back here within three days.

  By then, I should know a good deal more about Ziraldesh's secrets, though my kedate will not have returned in so short a time.

  Jerenn puffed as he sat back on his heels, red-faced after polishing the floor. Two of the maids had been taken ill, and despite his threatening cold he'd been saddled with one of the most menial household jobs. Gazing vacantly ahead of him, a little light-headed and flushed with his high temperature, his eyes settled on a single piece of folded vellum. For once, Cassian had forgotten to seal his notes in the bound and locked slim case where he normally kept them. The fold in the paper was uneven, and Jerenn could read a few words of the tall, elegant handwriting.

  "Crotias suspects city sabotage—? Premature?" he managed to make out. His heart thumped in his chest, remembering so clearly the words he'd overheard last night. He desperately wanted to unfold the paper, to read what else Cassian thought from meeting people as exalted as Crotias, but he did not dare. Slaves had been executed for far less. Remembering Cassian's gift of gold, and the clothes he had for the old ork woman, he knew it would be a betrayal to snoop, though he longed to do so. For a moment, he wondered if he didn't have a duty to read the sheaf; perhaps he could tell Cassian what he had heard, perhaps it might even help him!

  His head was still spinning with that idea when he heard the elf approaching. Jerenn re-polished the last square inch of floor, going at the work with ridiculous overexertion. His timing perfect, he managed to stop, sighing as if the entire weight of the world was on his thin shoulders, just as the elf entered the room.

  "Great heavens, boy, get off to bed," Cassian said, almost alarmed. "You'll be sick for a week if you do such things. Go and rest, and if any servant tells you otherwise, send them here to argue with me!"

  "Yes, sir," Jerenn said in his very best pale-and-wan voice. It was the one he'd used in his days as a beggar, putting soap and water in his mouth to fake an attack of fits. Afterwards, even the most hard-hearted skinflint dwarf had been prepared to throw a copper at such an unfortunately afflicted scrap of a boy. It was not wholly affectation; he ached sorely between his shoulder blades and there was a ragged pain in the left side of his rib cage. He winced and clutched at his side.

  To his amazement, the elf picked him up and carried him in his arms to the servant's quarters. Setting the boy down, he sternly told the one remaining maid to look after the youth and make sure he stayed safely in bed.

  "I shall be gone three days and he must rest during that time," Cassian commanded the girl.

  Jerenn stared at the elf's retreating form as he walked from the room.

  He is strong, Jerenn reflected; he picked me up without much effort and I'm not that small. He is intelligent, and learned, and cultured—and kind, I think. But I know something he doesn't and, just perhaps, he will also be grateful to me if there comes a day when he needs to know that something. I will not lie here for three days. I can do some asking, and begging in the Undercity. I can keep that girl out of my room by telling her I'm infectious. By tomorrow I'll be well enough to go out.

  He smiled quietly inside himself, and fell asleep.

  14

  Jerenn had been wrong, of course. Most of the next day was spent slipping in and out of sleep, drifting into and out of confusing half-dreams in which livid orks slashed at him with filthy claws and cloaked people whispered behind walls too quietly to be overheard. The fever was worse than he'd thought, but some of the elven gold had bought the right herbs after all and it turned out to be a thirty-six-hour rush of fever. The following night was not as bad as the day had been, and the exhausted boy managed to sleep peacefully at last.

  The next morning he felt weak, but that was mostly from lack of food. He sneaked out of his bed early and raided the kitchen, gobbling bread and cold meat and then a little fruit for his dry mouth. By breakfast time he was able to get by with a bit of warmed broth, pleading with the maid to stay well away from him lest she get sick too. Since his windowless room was dark, the girl had no way of seeing that his face was no longer hot and flushed, and she fled. For a moment, he wondered if she might have locked the door like he was some kind of plague victim, but then he remembered the door had no lock.

  Gathering up some clothes, rags, and a pillow, he piled them under the blankets to create a passable imitation of a sleeping body and managed to slip out of the villa unseen just after noon. He smeared his face with dirt and then realized he was wearing the same patched-up jerkin from his all-too-recent nocturnal adventure. The cloth still bore evil-smelling evidence of his fall into the pool of muck, and his nose wrinkled involuntarily at the reek.

  Oh well, it'll help my appearance as a beggar, he thought with a shrug.

  Jerenn made his way through the secret passages, wary of crossing anyone's path, until he came to where he would emerge into the Broken Quarter. Just before doing so, he took the package of half-rotted meat he'd rescued from the heap behind the villa and began to work on it. By the time his dexterous fingers had completed their efforts, and the meat was pressed close to his body and his clothing suitably adjusted, Jerenn had a befouled wound that would have won the sympathy of the most callous of onlookers. When he emerged blinking into the sunlight, he began to seek the right location for turning the wound into gifts of copper. He'd get some crusts and scraps too, but that wasn't what he needed; nonetheless, a child beggar should always appear grateful for anything he managed to extract.

  He knew where the most aggressive beggars were, the ones who would send him packing with a kick, or far worse, if he encroached on their patch, and he avoided those. But he also knew where they turned their own coins into the forgetfulness of bad drink, and in such places one could hide in shadowy corners and hear gossip and rumor. It was only a start, but today he felt like trusting to luck.

  Cassian reached Balkaria as swiftly as he'd hoped. The riverboat's stopover had been but for an hour, to pay regards and exchange greetings with an upriver t'skrang niall, and the miles had passed swiftly Not only was K'keelifa's vessel clean, it was very fast, and they reached the stone mines by early afternoon of the following day Cassian soon found who he was looking for, given the information he had gleaned from the House of Records and House Carinci's documents of rights and ownership. Daralec had assigned day-to-day control of the mines to his brother Fargresh, a standard exercise in nepotism. The man was hard-faced and exceedingly displeased to see him.

  "I've got work to do," he grumbled irritably. "K'keelifa will be back here within four days and will expect everything all ready for loading. The work's been hard, and what with all the dust from this dry weather, many of my miners have the wracking cough. Some of 'em have the fever too. Now what are you here to bother me with? I've never heard of praetori anyway. It doesn't mean anything to me."

  "Come now, that's hardly likely. You may not be a member of the conclave, but you're Daralec's brother and there are more mentions of you in his books than of anyone else. The two of you deposited documents in the House of Records at the same time on a number of occasions, though you work here for most of the year. Hardly coincidence.

  "Now," Cassian went on, "I imagine that the document you both forswore in the House of Records was given to you for safekeeping. And I imagine it will be presented at the next conclave, when you come to Vivane for the feast of Kypros."

  "What document?" Fargresh said shiftily. Got him, Cassian thought in a moment of real delight. My three days won't be wasted.

  "You forget that two conclave witnesses must be present when such a document is forsworn," Cassian said blithely. The man took the bait. It was obvious that he believed, as Cassian intended, that the other witness must have told the elf what had occurred.

  "I had instructions not to deliver it until
the first House conclave following Daralec's death," he said miserably.

  "I'm sorry to inform you that I do have the powers to inspect the document. But there is absolutely no reason for me to divulge the contents to anyone else and I shall not do so. I do not even need to take it with me," Cassian said coolly.

  "Look, you may be the law, but up here that doesn't count for all that much," the man said. "If I say you don't see it, then you don't."

  "Now, strangely enough, I saw a detachment of the Eighth Legion barely half a mile down the road, garrisoned to protect the mine," Cassian shot back. "If you really want me to come back here within half an hour with them at my back, and your working men and slaves to witness you dragged off in chains, I can accommodate you.

  "Come on, Fargresh. You can't deny me," Cassian finished, trying to sound more reasonable.

  The man retreated into the back room of his cramped hut, returning within minutes carrying a securely locked, heavy wooden box. It took two keys to unlock it, and Cassian noticed how he turned the second one in the lock with especial precision.

  Dear me, but House Carinci does like to barb its secrets with dangerous traps, Cassian mused. Why so suspicious?

  "You must give me something in writing," the man . pleaded. "I will have to break the seal. I must have something to show the conclave."

  "I have already prepared it for you," Cassian said, handing him a signed and wax-sealed scroll of his own. "This states that you have permitted me an inspection of this document under duress, and I have taken full responsibility for that."

  The man was still obviously distressed, but of course he had little choice in the matter. Cassian broke the seal on the document, unfolded it, and read the words eagerly There were two names, not at all what he had expected. The name of the man who would inherit the rights to the business was a wholly unexpected one, and it startled him. It would be difficult, and embarrassing at this stage, to confront him, though the elf knew he must do so at some stage. The other name, the second witness whose identity Cassian had not known until this moment, intrigued him for quite different reasons.