The Inquisitives [4] The Darkwood Mask

by Jeff LaSala

  Soneste searched the levels above the Bluefist for evidence of Tallis’s presence. Jotrem followed closely, allowing her to take the lead.

  To avoid upsetting any of the building’s tenants, she’d ordered Aegis to remain outside with the White Lions. Apparently an untended warforged drew a lot of attention in this land. She’d glimpsed a few since arriving in the city, but all of them appeared to be laborers and bodyguards, usually under the watchful eyes of their employers.

  Soneste moved in silence and observed every hall and stairwell, putting herself in the mind of a military man gone rogue who did not want to be found by legitimate authorities. She suspected Tallis’s skill wasn’t in clinging to the shadows like the thieves of Sharn. Instead, he blended in with the crowd. He was just one Karrn among thousands and did a good job seeming nothing more. Until today, he’d evaded Korth’s local inquisitives and the Justice Ministry.

  In her experience, men and women who did not want to be found were creative about their place of residence. Soneste knew what to look for and wasn’t disappointed in either Tallis or herself.

  Her mind was exhausted of its extrasensory power, so she relied on instinct alone. A few choice questions to the building’s occupants and a thorough search of its halls yielded a room on the third floor that matched her criteria: remote, neighbors to blend in among, and close enough to ground level to effect a quick escape.

  At the second to last door of this wing, she paused and looked closer. Jotrem looked on thoughtfully, traced a finger along the faceplate of the lock, then walked past her and stopped to look at the last door.

  “It’s not that one,” he said.

  “I think it is.”

  “That door is trapped. It’s a decoy. Leave it.”

  Soneste examined the lock again, noting trace amounts of fine black powder. She dabbed at it with two fingers then rubbed them together. A revolting smell rose up from the substance. Some sort of smokestick variation? If the lock was picked and the doorknob turned, more of this alchemical powder would foul the air and probably be a warning to someone nearby. Someone … next door?

  She looked down to where Jotrem examined the final door. He’d produced a set of lockpicks and was working at the lock.

  Not bad, old man, she thought silently. How did I miss this? Soneste was still dead tired. With a sigh, she climbed to her feet and joined him. A minute later, Jotrem had picked the lock and pushed it open with one of the tension wrenches from his set.

  Tallis’s apartment was clean and sparsely furnished, maintained as if expecting a raid. There were no obvious weapons in sight, but she soon found a thin dagger hidden on the underside of an ordinary desk near the wall. All signs suggested that Tallis did not actually spend much time here. It was a place to sleep for him, little more, a transient space in which to wait before moving to the next.

  Was this any way to live?

  “Evidently, Tallis is a petty thief as well.” Jotrem extracted a small velvet bag from the hollowed leg of the apartment’s only chair.

  He upended the bag onto Tallis’s only desk and separated the objects with his wrench then left them for her to examine. Soneste felt uneasy as she looked upon them: a slender necklace on a delicate silver chain, a bejeweled bracelet, and a pair of gem-studded earrings. All women’s jewelry, seeming of considerable value—and clearly none of it Tallis’s.

  Soneste felt the gentle pressure of the serpentine armband against her skin, hidden beneath her sleeve. She’d acquired it during the Blackfeather case, when she’d found the personal effects of the killer’s victims. Their families had long since forgotten about such valuables, hadn’t bothered to account for them all when Soneste went public with her findings. What they didn’t miss, she’d kept as a personal reward.

  Considering the appearance of Tallis’s residence, Soneste assumed the Karrn didn’t use such jewelry to live well. It was probably currency for his trade, a means to fund his vigilante lifestyle.

  But Soneste? She’d held onto valuables that weren’t hers when the opportunity arose—when she felt she deserved it. Inquisitive work had never paid well, so she’d supplemented her low income with such acquisitions. She made an active effort to get out and take part in Sharn’s extravagant night life. She could walk the streets and skybridges openly, go wherever she pleased, do whatever she wanted to do. She worked for Thuranne’s agency during the day, but at night she was a socialite reaching above her station. On more than one occasion, she’d even gone with friends to Silvermist, a dream parlor in Lower Dura.

  Soneste tried to shake away the guilty thoughts. So what if some disreputable people also frequented the same places? Soneste certainly wasn’t a criminal—not like Tallis. She was an upstanding citizen of Sharn, a tax-paying subject of King Boranel. She refused bribes, paid for her necessities by herself, and rented her own apartment. Tallis was a vagabond, a thief, and a killer in some capacity.

  She was an agent of the law. She was far above the lowlifes with which she often had to consort.

  Something caught her eye, then: a rectangle of paper tacked to the wall in one shadowed corner near the bed. Grateful for something else to distract her thoughts, Soneste left the jewelry behind. She walked over and peeled the paper loose, carrying it into the fading daylight at the window.

  It was a clipping, years old, but from the cracks and rough texture of the paper she knew it was from the Korth Sentinel. Soneste flashed through it, gleaning the content quickly. It told of a skirmish along Scions Sound, wherein Karrnath had lost an entire infantry platoon along the rocky shore when an Aundairian company had flushed them from hiding.

  “I remember that,” Jotrem said, behind her. “They were outnumbered three-to-one. Twenty-six captured and systematically executed. A Karrnathi platoon discovered them and chased them off before the Aundairians could burn the bodies.”

  “Were you one of—?”

  “No. I was still a cadet at the time, reading the chronicles along with everyone else.” Prompted by the clipping, Jotrem started another round of searching. “The war was more than some distant threat here. It was a way of life, even for those who did not fight. Many Karrns keep articles such as these, remnants of the war. News of loved ones, accounts of battles. I have some of my own.”

  In short order, the older inquisitive uncovered a cache of rolled up papers hidden behind a panel in a wall Soneste had overlooked. I need sleep, she thought.

  Jotrem began to unroll the posters upon Tallis’s bed. War propaganda, she recognized instantly. Soneste had plenty of it herself in Sharn and even back home in Starilaskur. It was common enough across the Five Nations, intended to boost morale among the populace against one’s declared enemies and encourage recruitment. Mostly it sowed hatred and intolerance.

  She felt blood rush to her face as she looked upon some of Karrnath’s war posters. One of them depicted the familiar likeness of King Boranel with scaly, bluish skin and a massive, saw-toothed glaive gripped in his hands. His mouth was stretched into a diabolic grin, framed by a slick, stringy beard. The artist had rendered the scenery underneath to make it appear as though famine and corruption flowed before Boranel. At the bottom, beneath a squad of warforged with green-glowing eyes, was a title: THE BRELISH DEVIL.

  “Roll them up,” Soneste said in disgust. Pride for her own king and country swelled within her.

  “There are others here,” Jotrem answered coolly as he flipped through them. “Would you care to see what Queen Barvette of Aundair looked like, or the Keeper of the Flame? Your king is not alone.” He turned and held her eyes with an unapologetic stare. “I can only imagine how you Brelanders saw us Karrns.”

  As black crows circling carrion, she knew. As necromancers mustering the fallen to fight again. As fiends raising their own enemies from the repose of death to turn against their former comrades.

  “I know,” she said quietly.

  Never more than now, here in this quiet apartment in the middle of Karrnath, had Soneste ever been so gl
ad the war was over. She’d never joined up herself, but as far as she was concerned, the Last War had already claimed too much from her family. Her father, a dragoon in the Brelish army, had been killed in the Battle of Cairn Hill, and her mother, once a soldier in the captain’s own unit before the two had married, had not spoken a word since.

  Chapter

  THIRTEEN

  The Midwife

  Zol, the 10th of Sypheros, 998 YK

  The derelict façade did not bear a sign, but even a casual glance at the store’s front window, cracked in two places, revealed an assemblage of curiosities within. Other shops lined the slanted street in both directions, most of them closed at this early hour. Some were abandoned, housing vagrants and the less fortunate among Korth’s lawless population. The icy breeze sweeping in from King’s Bay didn’t do much to wash away the detritus of the Low District. It gathered like eddies in every niche and alley.

  Toward the end of second watch, only laborers, longshoreman, and the White Lions walked the streets. The odd warforged could be seen here and there, doing guard work or heavy-lifting. A casual glance at the unremarkable curio shop before him told him that business was slow.

  That suited Tallis—and the one he sought—just fine.

  He’d come here in his veteran’s garb again, careful to keep his face hidden from everyone he passed. He hoped this would be the last time he needed to use this particular disguise. Tallis scrutinized the other occupants of the street, making certain everyone he saw belonged there.

  With the Brelish girl on his trail, he had to be especially careful. He may have overpowered her once, but she’d tailed him like a magebred hound. Tallis was fairly certain she possessed magic of some kind. She could be working for House Tharashk or House Medani, but she’d cited King Boranel. Was she really with the Brelish government?

  Satisfied that no one had followed him, he limped over to the small shop and opened the door. The hinges screeched from intentional neglect, and the small copper bell affixed to the door heralded his arrival. Rows of tall shelves made the interior even more confined. Cluttered with miscellaneous oddities, the shelves limited sight. Had this been any other place, Tallis would have been nervous about that. He liked to control his environment and command a view of all exits and hiding places. Still, he had never known a civilian locale more shielded from the law than this place. He felt genuinely safe.

  Tallis moved among the shelves and soon caught the eye of the bored-looking clerk at the back. He nodded in greeting and received no response. Of course. This was how it was done.

  He made his way casually to one side of the shop, idly lifting up trinkets for inspection, some of them actually legitimate objects of monetary and artistic value. There were the usual sundries: antiquated artificer tools, glass bottles of every color, porcelain dolls. He spied ivory soldiers from a Conqueror set he’d never seen before, along with Lhazaar nesting dolls, and even a mummified gnoll hand from Droaam. The shelves were well dusted, the curios arranged with a semblance of order. She actually keeps this place restocked, he mused, impressed as always.

  The true worth of this shop was hardly found in its visible wares. When he neared a wall whose bric-a-brac lay behind glass doors, Tallis cleared his throat.

  “Is there a key for these?” he asked aloud.

  “Might be,” the clerk responded in monotone. “Something interest you?”

  “Yeah,” Tallis said, familiar with the routine. He eyed the collection of tiny, winged figurines, looking for the one that stood out among the rest. “This one, with a child. Some sort of sylph mother?”

  “As you will,” came the reply. Tallis heard the jostling of keys. “If you’ll step aside, sir.”

  With his own apathetic grunt, Tallis stepped away to examine a shelf of rusted warforged fingers. Most were the thick, Cannith-issued digits, but he noted with interest that others were slender and articulate.

  The clerk selected an unusual key from his ring then twisted it inside the tumbler. Knowing what to expect, Tallis’s sharp ears caught the faint rustle of whirring gears followed by the sound of the front door locking by itself. At the same time, the glass panes of the door frosted over as if the temperature had dropped exceedingly low, obscuring its transparency.

  The clerk removed the key and inserted another into the same arcane mechanism, turning again. A second click sounded from beneath an area carpet. The clerk kneeled before him and Tallis saw the faded tattoo on the back of his neck—the sigil of the Midwife’s gang. Tallis wondered which one this man was. Ranec? Dorven? Not surprisingly, they seldom looked the same.

  The clerk pulled open the trapdoor beneath the carpet and gestured at the narrow, spiraling stair lead into darkness. “Lastpoint,” he said softly, naming the watchword for entry.

  With a wink, he added, “I think.”

  “Funny,” Tallis said.

  When the trapdoor closed above him, he relied upon memory alone to find the bottom of the twisting stair. Even the elf blood in his veins couldn’t penetrate the utter dark. Tallis felt another pang of loss for his darkvision lenses. Something told him the Brelish inquisitive had them now. As he walked, he removed the veteran’s cloak and bundled it up under his arm.

  At the end of the stair he found himself at a juncture of three dark corridors that smelled of smoke and wax. A single stub of a candle was fixed upon a wall sconce across from him, trailing a tiny wisp of smoke as it sputtered. Tallis knew the candle was enchanted to remain in its dying state indefinitely. The smoke drifted idly down the right-hand tunnel.

  “Lastpoint,” Tallis repeated in a quiet but clear voice. The utterance suppressed the magic, temporarily incapacitating all traps down the right-hand tunnel. Slowly he set off down the path, scanning the shadows for the tell-tale triggers.

  Very few were allowed here. Even Tallis, privy to the Midwife’s hideout as one of her favored clients, had to be cautious. Once, when he’d foolishly entered the perilous gauntlet after mispronouncing a previous watchword, he’d nearly lost his head to a swinging axe blade and he still bore the chemical scar at the center of his back from that damnable acid trap.

  Tallis knocked on the door at the end of the last hall. A small window slid open, and two yellow eyes peered back at him.

  “Unscathed this time,” Tallis said, holding up one empty hand as if in evidence.

  When the heavy lock shifted, the door scraped against the stone. Except for the leather jerkin he wore and the long knife held ready in one hand, the rogue standing before Tallis was the spitting image of the clerk upstairs. The yellow eyes he’d seen a moment ago had already been replaced by brown.

  “Is anyone actually still fooled by that ridiculous getup?” the man asked, gesturing at the bundled cloak in Tallis’s hand.

  Tallis looked down at his veteran’s disguise. “Some are, Ranec. I suppose it’s just my amazing fortune that observant changelings like you remain an undesirable minority in this town.”

  The rogue’s face blurred and reshaped itself, now resembling Tallis’s own. He offered a wicked smile, but two of the changeling’s teeth were capped with silver. “Dorven,” he corrected, pointing the knife blade at his teeth. “My brother has only one.”

  “Can’t change your teeth?” Tallis asked with disinterest. Dorven grunted and stepped aside.

  The chamber beyond resembled the common room of a guild hall, with hardwood benches and tables, a few pieces of luxury furniture, and plenty of open space. The walls were probably stone, but heavy curtains hid them from view and framed the room’s perimeter. The hall conveyed a warm, comfortable atmosphere, looking as it always had. Simple. Clean.

  And illegal. A pair of men argued in hushed tones over a table, a loose sheaf of forged documents spread out between them. One of the men nursed a swollen jaw. The other, a large brute with an iron prosthetic replacing most of a missing ear, wiped the errant crumbs of some vanished meal from his goatee. In the center of the room, a sly gnome cast gold coins into the air, grinni
ng when they transformed into tiny knives as they peaked before melting back into currency.

  Tallis ignored the gang and walked up to a large desk set against one wall, where the curtains parted to reveal a mural-sized map of Karrnath. Small pins riddled the surface, making the map resemble a general’s battle plan. Tallis had always wondered what the pins denoted, but he knew better than to ask.

  Seated at a desk beneath the map, a stern-faced young woman scratched in a thick ledger with a feathered quill. She was pretty even with the fresh, livid scar that ran along one cheek, and the monocle nestled over one eye. She scowled when she looked up at him. Tallis never remembered her name.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked, clearly irritated. He noticed a small plate of cakes on the corner of the desk.

  “Identification papers,” he answered. “Maybe travel papers too. I will, uh … need this for myself this time. I could use some … well, professional recommendations.”

  “Fine,” she said and started jotting down his request on fresh vellum.

  “It’s been a while, Tallis. I trust all is well?”

  Tallis turned around at the sound of the nectarous voice. A child-sized woman sat languid upon an ottoman of dark velvet. She wore a well-tailored gown of green silk with matching jewels at her wrists and throat. The lines of her middling face were softened by emerald eyes and stylish brown hair which was arrayed with ringlets like Aundairian nobility. She looked like she’d just come from some gala of the city’s elite. Even with running makeup and sleepy eyes, she carried the air of a much younger halfling.

  “Not as well as it ought to be,” he said, then raised an eyebrow as he looked her over. “I’ve never seen you look so radiant before, Midwife.”

  “Flattery will not lower my fee,” she answered with a pout. “This appointment was made on short notice, Tallis.”

  Tallis held out his hands defensively. He’d meant his words.