The Inquisitives [4] The Darkwood Mask

by Jeff LaSala

  But while Brokenblade Castle was a stronghold of dark gray stone, bright banners, and courtly elegance, Crownhome looked like a fortress of bone, fully arrayed for war. The two strongholds couldn’t appear more different, yet both exuded the majesty of old Galifar.

  With her own nation in mind, a thought occurred to Soneste. “Is this where Prince Halix and Princess Borina now reside?”

  “It is,” Hyran replied with a pleasant smile. “Princess Borina is often at court. Prince Halix enrolled at Rekkenmark Academy earlier this year. He returns to Korth periodically to visit his sister, and I understand he’ll be returning again soon. One of our nobles is hosting a Conqueror tournament in a couple of weeks and will be inviting competitors from across the Five Nations. I’m told the prince is an avid fan of the game.”

  Soneste remembered with mixed feelings when the Korranberg Chronicle had announced the foreign exchange that Breland had established with Karrnath, Aundair, and Thrane as a gesture of peace between the Five Nations. Kaius III’s younger sister, Haydith, now lived in King Boranel’s court, while his brother Gaius had been sent to Thrane. In turn, Boranel’s youngest children had come to Karrnath to continue their education in Kaius’s court.

  The murdered Brelish ambassador came swiftly to mind. As if guessing her thoughts, Hyran continued.

  “They are safe, rest assured, and well guarded. I daresay the princess is very popular among our aristocracy. She has Korth’s finest attending to her at all times, as well as a fair number of misguided suitors. The prince spends most of his time among his fellow cadets at Rekkenmark. There is no safer place in Karrnath, Miss Otänsin. General Thauram, commander of the White Lions, is assembling his elite in the wake of this recent tragedy to guard them both.”

  Soneste looked out at the gruesome knight riding alongside the coach. She wondered how many of the “elite” were actually alive. Surely they wouldn’t guard Brelish royals with Karrnathi undead.

  Soon the coach pulled up before a massive tower of black stone. Hyran helped her from the coach with the grace of a well-bred noble.

  “This is the Ebonspire,” he said, produced a leather folder and holding it out to her. “Within this you will find a description of the scene and the death report. An agent from the Ministry of the Dead has employed preservative spells upon the suite so that you can examine the crime scene as it was found last night. Tomorrow afternoon the bodies will need to be removed, so please make whatever observations you can tonight.”

  “In the morning you may call on me at the Justice Ministry.” Hyran pointed to the heavy doors of the tower behind her. “The concierge has been informed of your presence, and can give you directions to either the Ministry’s headquarters or the Seventh Watch Inn.”

  “Thank you, Minister.” She didn’t know what else to say.

  With a nod, Hyran climbed into the coach again. The conveyance rolled off down the street, and the grim knight gave her a final glare before disappearing.

  Chapter

  FIVE

  Reflections of Death

  Sul, the 8th of Sypheros, 998 YK

  When bells rang to mark the middle of fifth watch, Tallis left the docks and joined the dwindling crowds in the Community Ward, eyeing the people as he took up the armless veteran’s pace again. The Lions had doubled their patrols, often stopping citizens to ask questions. Here and there, merchants bargained with customers, exchanging nervous rumors as well as coins. Tallis knew how to read crowds, could recognize paranoia flitting between Korth’s middle and lower classes.

  He couldn’t blame them. There was a killer on the loose—so it was said—more deadly than most, and while most accepted the slayings that took place among the dregs of the Low District as an understandable hazard, this latest murder had reached into highest echelons of Korth society. Rumor was, the murderer was a veteran of the Last War taking revenge against all enemies of Karrnath.

  Images from the slaughter assailed Tallis’s mind, but he pushed them away with a soldier’s resolve. When allies and enemies fell before his eyes during the War, Tallis had fought on, carrying out his missions to their end. Death on the battlefield had to be impersonal.

  But this … this was different.

  “Mourn another day,” an instructor at the Academy had once said, so Tallis would not bow to grief. Yes, he’d known Gamnon as a Brelish captain during the Last War—as part of a combined attack against Cyre—but had never called the man a friend. But no matter what kind of man Gamnon had been or had become, his family—his children—could not have deserved their fate.

  Since waking only hours ago, he’d found ways to occupy his mind. Speaking with Lenrik, even briefly, always had a calming effect upon him. Bargaining with Verdax and pawning off some of his possessions helped too. But walking the streets, lacking a plan, Tallis found his mind wandering free again. Perhaps some food would help.

  He found a meat vendor racing to close up his cart before nightfall. As the streets began to empty, Tallis made his way to the Commerce Ward, chewing the strips of salted pork he’d purchased. Today it might as well have been ashes. It did nothing to console him.

  A child’s scream of pain shattered his attempted silence. He looked around, startled, then determined it wasn’t real. The scene from last night battered at his consciousness, demanding recollection. Tallis, helpless to stop it, picked up his pace as the events of the Ebonspire began to return to him in force. Not since the Last War and the depredations of Marshal Serror had he felt such disgust.

  “Not now,” he breathed.

  According to the plaque in the lobby, the Ebonspire was forty-five stories in height. There were four separate residences on each level arrayed around a central shaft, where a lift carried guests to any level they wished to go. The lift had been disabled during the attack, forcing the responding guards to take the stairs. Soneste had asked the attendant within what powered the lift, suspecting some artifice of House Cannith. Her understanding of such mechanisms was limited to the towers of Sharn, most of which were built and accessed by Cannith ingenuity and augmented by an aerial manifest zone. As a resident of the City of Towers, it was difficult for Soneste to believe that any other dragonmarked house could be as powerful as House Cannith.

  “Elemental,” the bored magewright had answered her, offering nothing more.

  Soneste arrived at the thirty-fourth floor, where she found five White Lions guarding the door. They stood like statues, positioned evenly to view every entrance to the level. One of the soldiers was a dark-haired woman Soneste’s own age. Only her eyes turned to Soneste when she stepped off the lift. The city watch in Sharn never displayed this level of discipline, and Soneste felt certain the White Lions would not be as easily swayed with bribes or honeyed words.

  Soneste produced her identification papers, but the other woman waved the document away. “Either you’re the killer come again—in which case there’s obviously little we could do to stop you entering—or you’re the inquisitive they sent in.”

  “I … Yes.”

  “Three good men lost their lives defending your precious ambassador, so do me a favor, Brelander. Just name the killer so we can do our job.”

  “I aim to,” Soneste answered with a nod, deciding this was not the time to correct the name for her countrymen: Brelish. Korth’s garrison seemed as dour as its citizenry, but after dealing with silver-tongued Aundairians and self-righteous Thranes back home, Karrns were refreshingly incisive. They seemed to say precisely what they were thinking.

  “If you need us,” the Lion said with a dismissive gesture, “just shout.”

  The key the concierge had given her unlocked the door with a metallic click without her needing to turn it at all. It suppressed the magic wards that locked and guarded the door. The killer no doubt had the means to subvert such wards.

  When Soneste pushed open the door, an unnatural cold washed over her from the dimness within. Even if every window within had been left open, it should not have been this frigid
. Clearly this was the preservative magic of which Hyran spoke.

  The coppery stench of blood tainted the air, muted only sleightly by the cold. She’d inspected too many murder scenes to be fazed by such unpleasantness, but the lingering threat of the unknown killer kept her senses sharp, despite the presence of the guards. Killers often returned to the scene of the crime, either to remove evidence or kill again.

  Soneste shut the door behind her then drew out her crysteel dagger and a silvery headband. The latter was a watch lamp, created for the Sharn Watch, but the many favors owed to Thuranne had secured several for her agency’s use. Soneste slipped the mithral circlet around her head and with a thought summoned a globe of white light into the air. It floated just over her shoulder, illuminating the space around her as brightly as a torch.

  The dwelling was a study in luxurious amenities. Easily five times larger than her own apartment back in Sharn, it was carpeted and filled with a variety of elegant furniture and magewrought conveniences. Beyond the foyer, she could see two bedrooms, a privy, and a dining room all connected by a lavish—though blood-spattered—common room.

  Bracing herself against the severe cold, she opened the leather folder Hyran had provided. According to the death report within, a total of ten had been slain.

  The first three were the White Lions of which the guard had spoken, allegedly the first to respond to the massacre only to become victims themselves. They lay upon the hardwood of the foyer in dried pools of blood. The wounds were very precise, made in the grooves and joints of the half-plate armor by a slender, piercing blade. Such injuries were undoubtedly meant to slow them down until an opening presented itself, which it had—each man had a bloody stab wound in his neck, clear through to the other side.

  “Khyber,” she whispered, breath clouding in the freezing air. The killer was a professional.

  The death report stated that the soldiers’ bodies would soon be relocated to the Necropolis of the Valiant, the city’s morgue. An addendum stated that the seven remaining dead, the bodies of the Brelish ambassador and his party, were not subject to seizure by the state.

  Soneste scowled. The fact that every Karrnathi citizen could be claimed by the royal corpse collectors upon death sickened her. Despite the war’s end two years ago, this decree had endured, allowing the remains of Karrnath’s citizens to be raised again to serve the state should the need ever arise. Was she really surprised? Karrnath was still under martial law. Here the draconian Code of Kaius prevailed over the more civilized Code of Galifar.

  According to the Korranberg Chronicle, Karrnath’s undead troops had been recalled after the signing of the Treaty of Thronehold, but it was well known that they were hidden away in tactical reserve. From the chthonic air of this grim city, she wouldn’t be surprised if many of the skeletons and zombies waited somewhere beneath these very streets.

  Just below the description and names of the three dead Lions was a transcript, an interview with the slain conducted by a Ministry cleric. She flipped through the report to ensure that no such spells were used upon the ambassador’s wife or their attendants. Soneste, despite her annoyance, would honor the family’s wishes.

  The transcript was brief. Three questions had been posed to two of the dead Lions. Their cryptic replies described a “slim intruder in black garb who wielded two blades.” The intruder had turned away from the civilians the moment the White Lions entered the flat. Then it killed them.

  Soneste stepped past the soldiers to examine the two menservants in the common room. The upended furniture and ruffled carpet suggested a nasty fight, and both men had dropped their weapons—ceremonial sabers—where they’d fallen. There wasn’t a single drop of blood on these weapons, although it was quite evident that the killer’s had found their mark. A rapier’s blade, Soneste decided, for she’d delivered such wounds herself, though not with such strength or precision.

  She surveyed the rest of the room, rubbing her gloved hands together to stay warm. The cold fire lanterns perched upon the walls had been deliberately shattered, and only a single intact globe remained, affixed to the low table that had been kicked over. Two fingers, the pinky and ring finger from a man’s right hand, lay severed on the blood-stained carpet. They belonged to neither of the servants. One man had his throat slashed open in two places. The other had probably died from blood loss, likely from the arterial wound to his thigh.

  Soneste found the third servant lying near the threshold of the master bedroom, his unarmored abdomen punctured twice. An easier kill, that one. The first man to die. A black leather mask, which would cover only the forehead, eyes, and nose of the wearer, lay discarded near him. Soneste pocketed the evidence and continued her examination.

  There was a confusing jumble of imprints in the plush carpet, made from the boots of the White Lions, the victims, and the Ministry’s initial inspectors. And, of course, the killer. Soneste stared at the pattern, envisioning a fight that could account for it: three men moving to engage the killer as he entered the room. The killer’s prints, which led in from the master bedroom—his likely means of entrance—were placed just so. They were spaced apart, as if he’d run in, but the prints went in and out again. The soldiers, those who hadn’t been slain, had eventually pursued him out.

  She glanced at the dead guards. From the precision of his handiwork, the killer hadn’t been afraid of them. Why run at all, then? Why not slay the next three to arrive, too, and leave uncontested and on his own terms?

  This was quite a puzzle.

  Moving on to the other bedroom, Soneste found the door still hanging at a skewed angle. The killer had forced his way into this room. The victims within probably had sought refuge here. The locking mechanism was battered. It had taken the killer a few attempts to bash his way through the reinforced door with a heavy, blunt object. She looked around. No such object presented itself. If it was a weapon, the killer took it with him. Once the lock was broken, a vicious kick—there was a sleight print made from the boot—had forced the door.

  As Soneste stepped into the room, her stomach soured.

  Maril, the ambassador’s wife, had fallen first, defying her attacker. Her richly embroidered skirts, a recent fashion for matrons of Wroat, were soaked through with her own blood. The nursemaid had been struck from behind, an easier kill. The two children, Renet and Vestra, had been claimed in quick succession, their bodies lying entwined. A ratty stuffed badger was still clutched in the little girl’s hand.

  The light from her watch lamp flared brightly, momentarily beyond Soneste’s control. She steeled her mind, suppressing the anger that rushed to the fore and sought to overwhelm the light. She breathed slow and deep, just as Veshtalan had instructed. Now was not the time for emotions or the exertion of psionic energy.

  Soneste turned away, needing to leave this room—at least for now. The report stated that Ambassador Gamnon had been thrown from the balcony, which was attached to the master bedroom and was likely the killer’s means of entrance. She would have to examine Gamnon’s body later since it had been thrown from the balcony and waited her inspection at the morgue, but she needed to see where his final struggle had taken place.

  The shrill cry of children heightened Tallis’s awareness and set him immediately on the offensive. The shrouded intruder had come here to kill.

  As he chased the lissome figure into the common room he saw chaos unfolding. Two children were pulled, shrieking, away from the furniture by a nursemaid and their mother. A second and third manservant, as well as the portly nobleman whose family was in peril, advanced upon the intruder with weapons drawn. A chair was knocked over, a table kicked aside.

  “What is this?” the father demanded, and Tallis knew at a glance that the man was certainly not Arend ir’Montevik, the one he’d come to steal from. The last time he’d seen this man’s face had been on Cyran soil years ago. The bullish features and the soldier’s body the man once possessed had been softened by age. His eyes weren’t as courageous now.


  Before the Brelish could engage the intruder, Tallis was there. He swept the pick end of his weapon at the intruder’s feet in an attempt to trip her, but the weapon passed through her legs as if she were mere illusion.

  “Keeper!” Tallis cursed, aware that he was contending with powerful magic. Those blades certainly looked real.

  The four men surrounded the intruder, but she gave no sign of unease. In a dramatic arch, the assassin swept both rapier blades at one of the servants, slicing open his throat in two places. Blood surged from both and the man fell. In the same backswing, she parried Gamnon’s sword stroke in a spray of fiery sparks. The noble’s long sword appeared to possess an enchantment of its own, but it did no good. All their weapons passed harmlessly through the assassin’s body yet again.

  Frustrated, Tallis aimed his weapon to parry her blades, knowing that attacks to her body would be futile. Tallis knew the presence of the undead only too well, and he didn’t think this one was one of them.

  Host, he swore silently, he had not come equipped for such an opponent. “This is not an illusion!” he said to the other men. “Use magic, if you have it!”

  The second servant fell back a few steps, just out of reach of the killing blades. He pointed his free hand at the assassin and incanted a short phrase. Three bolts of glowing energy burst from his fingertips, slamming into her—and vanishing again without effect.

  “By the Flame!” Gamnon shouted. “Help! Someone help!”

  To their credit, the Brelish noble and his remaining servant fought well, but the assassin’s blades were tireless and those few swings that reached through her defenses could not make contact. Tallis had yet to be attacked directly, allowing him to focus on averting strikes that would have proven fatal to the other men.

  “Who are you?” Gamnon asked, glancing to his would-be rescuer.

  The assassin’s blades did not allow for conversation, so Tallis ignored the question. Evidently the mask he wore made him every bit as mysterious to the Brelish. Both he and the assassin were intruders, after all, but only one was here to deal out death.