Visions: Knights of Salucia - Book 1

by C. D. Espeseth

  The commotion in the office behind him was growing as the remaining constables sorted out who was next in line to challenge John.

  “It is an unnecessary use of funds, you hooligan!” Gary sputtered from behind his door.

  “No need to get personal,” John said as he glanced over his shoulder. Two rather determined constables looked as if they had decided they needed to do something. John had to hurry.

  “Screw it,” John cursed, and slammed his sai into the door, took a step back and push-kicked with everything he had. The heel of his boot smashed into the butt end of his sai and blasted the blunted weapon right into the simple locking mechanism. The door flew open and John had the satisfaction of seeing Gary Hornwright practically piss himself.

  “Did you know your door was locked, Gary?” John asked, and then slammed it shut and wedged a chair under the now broken handle and sat down upon it to barricade the two of them in.

  “Gods damn it, John!” Gary seethed from a cowering position behind his desk.

  John stooped down to pick up the denied request form on the floor. “So what I would really like to know, is why, in your infinite wisdom, you would believe it is not necessary to pursue a mass murderer who just killed the gods damned Xinnish Princess!?”

  Gary visibly made an attempt to collect himself and puff out his chest. “Because we’ve already caught him.”

  “How’s that?” John asked. He didn’t believe it possible; even so, Gary Hornwright must actually be getting dumber with experience.

  “The culprit is down in the holding cells as we speak.” Gary held his chin out proudly.

  “I see.” John nodded, holding back the dozens of names he wanted to blast Gary with. He continued in as measured a tone as he could muster, “I’m sure you won’t mind if I ask him a few questions then?”

  “Be my guest, Senior Prefect,” Gary said, “He’s already confessed it all. We’d cornered him in an alley outside the palace grounds and he told us everything down to the last detail. He even told us about a few of his other murders. It’s cut and dried, John.”

  “I’m sure.” John shook his head. This was hopeless. “And I suppose you haven’t locked down the port like I asked?”

  Gary held his hands out in a placating gesture. “Hardly seems necessary when our man is already down in the cells.”

  It took everything John could muster to walk out of the room without impaling Gary Hornwright to the back wall with the flagpole sitting beside that trumped up toad’s desk, but he managed it. John took his sai back from the big young constable on the way out, whose leg looked to be able to support his weight again. The kid would have a nasty bruise but no lasting damage.

  “Come with me, Constable, I need to see this prisoner of yours,” John said. The big lad looked surprised but jumped to obey.

  John already had his pen out. There was something strange going on here, something other than the fact Gary Hornwright had managed to stay chief for so long.

  It was time to start taking details. He looked up at the young constable, who was eager to help in a prefect’s murder investigation. “Now where did they find this man who confessed to everything?”

  John’s pen began to fly across the page.

  * * *

  The cells were surprisingly adequate considering how the Narrows Constabulary had inherited a decrepit old tower for their offices. John could see the fresh-cut stone and new mortar framing sturdy iron-bar doors all along the corridors. The cells even had fresh straw beds. At least Gary could do this right.

  As John walked along the corridor, he saw that most of the cells were empty. “The inmates out working today?” John asked the young constable, whose name he had gleaned was Ned.

  “They’re up at the granite quarry today, up near Scatter’s Pike,” Ned replied. “High King has requested great stone obelisks along each of the major roadways to serve as landmarks.” Ned looked to John with a bit of a smile. “Prisoners have been so tired and sore for the past month they haven’t had a chance to think about escape.”

  At that John nodded: similar systems of punishment were being incorporated all over the Union. If they had to feed prisoners and keep them healthy, they were damn sure going to make them work for it.

  Ned took the keyring from his belt and pointed to a cell. “Here he is. Last door on the left.”

  John looked at the wretched creature huddled in the corner of the cell and knew immediately that this was not the man he had been chasing for eight months.

  “One of our constables cornered this one, says his name is Jerun Smitsen. Didn’t put up much of a struggle. Confessed to all the murders, talked about how he lured the Princess away to the woods,” Ned said.

  “And Gary just swallowed the whole load. Halom take me,” John said as he flipped back a few pages in his notebook and cleared his throat to read. “Tell me, Ned, does this Jerun Smitsen look like ‘a tall, wide-shouldered, athletic, well-groomed, and attractive young man’?”

  “No, not really. I mean, he could be young, although you’d have to clean and shave him to tell that.” Ned lifted an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”

  John wiped his brow in frustration, “Because that’s how Michael de La Quan was described by the doorman and two others who remember seeing the relatively low-ranking noble dancing with Princess Syun!”

  Ned clamped his mouth shut and tried to look somewhere else before muttering, “I was just told to lock him up. I –”

  “I know,” John hissed, “just – shut up.”

  Ned nodded.

  “So, Ned, what point would there be in having a desperate man, who quite obviously doesn’t fit the description of our killer, confess to all of those murders?” John began writing a side note to make a formal complaint of incompetence against Gary Hornwright the next time he got back to a Prefect’s Office.

  “So this one is like a decoy?” Ned stated more than asked. “Which means this fella is here to delay the investigation, in my estimation.”

  John turned on his heel in amazement to look at Ned. “Halom be praised. Someone working here does have half a brain. And the point in delaying would be … ?”

  Ned squinted his eyes. “So the real killer could get away?”

  “That’s it,” John exclaimed. “I’m going to recommend you for promotion, Ned.”

  Ned puffed out his chest a bit at that, but then worry seemed to strike him. “Shouldn’t we get back out there then? The real killer is on the loose!”

  “Calm down.” John held up a hand. “You put a few things together and figure you’re running the show. I’ve got a good idea where he’s headed. Though if there hasn’t been any delay or lock down at the ports I doubt we’ll catch him before he makes landfall, regardless of the ship Miranda gets us.”

  “So why are you here?” Ned said, squinting once again in thought.

  “To find out why someone would volunteer for a death sentence of course.” John walked up to the cell, indicating for Ned to unlock the door. “So, Jerun, is it?” John said to the man still huddled in the corner.

  The man twitched in response. “That’s me.” Jerun got to his feet slowly.

  “And you killed Princess Elise Syun?” John asked, taking in the man’s build before flipping to an entry about the murders in Wadachi. He read it silently to himself: “The victim was roughly six and half feet tall, and nearly eighteen stone of hard-working muscle. Footprints suggest the victim attempted to struggle but the attacker quickly overwhelmed the resistance with precise cuts to the hamstring, wrist, knee, and shoulder. The victim was then cut upon repeatedly before death.” John stopped reading and looked back at Jerun’s shaking hands. Two of his fingers had obviously been broken sometime in the past and healed into knobbly lumps. Definitely not hands which could slice tendons with pinpoint accuracy while a giant musclebound pit-fighter was trying to rip your arms out of their sockets.

  “So why did you do it?” John asked.

  Jerun stared straight ahead as if he we
re looking past him. “She acted like she wanted it, but then wouldn’t give it up.” The forlorn man looked back at John, straight into his eyes. “No one denies me and lives.”

  John stopped himself from laughing at the absurdity of it, for there was something not quite right about this man. He focused on writing down Jerun’s words verbatim.

  “And Halik Wu in Wadashi?” John asked, “The big pit-fighter? Why him?”

  Jerun eyes went distant once again, and his passionless voice regurgitated the tripe John now knew he was meant to say. “He was arrogant, showing off his muscles to all those women. Pride is a sin, Mr. Stonebridge.”

  Now that was interesting. John hadn’t given his name, but the other details were close enough. He made a show of flipping calmly through his notebook. “Tell me about the eyes. Why do you place coins on them?”

  Jerun looked past him again, but this time there was a twitch. Sweat began to break out on his brow, and his body started to shake, and his eyes darted back and forth frantically. “The coins …” he started, and looked almost ill. “It’s a Tawan tradition, an offering to Orcanus for the dead who are returned to the sea.”

  This answer had been different: Jerun had looked down at the floor this time, and the body language had changed. He’s afraid, John thought. He’s been conditioned to answer somehow. This was getting stranger and stranger.

  “It’s not him,” John said, still watching Jerun. “Ned, put him back in his cell. The murder charges are to be dropped. However, this man is deliberately hampering an investigation of the His Majesty’s Constabulary – a crime which carries its own sentence if I’m not mistaken. Have the paperwork drawn up.”

  Ned nodded and grabbed Jerun by the arm.

  “No!” Jerun struggled against Ned’s strength. “That’s not true. I killed them people. It was me. I told you everything.”

  “There are no coins, Jerun,” John said quietly. “That was a lie, but you didn’t know.”

  “No. I killed them people. It was me. I lured the Princess into the woods, we played a game, and I killed her, slit her throat. It was me. It was me. It was me ...” The prisoner’s eyes glossed over as Ned put him back in the cell. Jerun began to rock back and forth in the corner, repeating those same words over and over.

  John watched him for a moment. There was something familiar about this. A memory from his past fought its way to the surface. We were in Whales Head ... there was a woman ... from the Blasted Isles. A chill went down his spine. He had seen this once before. A herb-gatherer had bewitched a man who had stolen from her. The thief had begun rocking just like this. Eyes rolling and blinking at the same time. “It’s gods damned Vinda magic,” John hissed.

  “What?” Ned looked at him after locking the door.

  John grabbed Ned by the lapels of his uniform. “I need you to get me a witch.”

  “A witch?”

  “A Vinda, from the Blasted Isles. Right now, Ned! Go!” John pushed the big constable towards the stairs.

  Ned scrambled to obey, and John watched him run down the corridor and up the stairs.

  This was troubling: the Vinda Sisterhood did not get involved in things like this, and John knew the murderer was a young man. Unless it was a team of murderers? But that didn’t fit either. The way the bodies were killed suggested the same tall, lithe, athletic man as described by so many people. Why was there a witch involved?

  It was not long before Ned crashed back down the stairs, interrupting his thoughts.

  “That was quick,” John said.

  Ned gestured to the squat woman following him carefully down the stairs. “My ma goes to Sister Tantos here for all her readings. She lives just down the street.”

  “Good job, son.” John nodded, impressed by the young lad.

  “You be havin’ a spell to take care of, I do hear?” Sister Tantos waved her arm at Ned, shooing the big constable away. John grimaced at the witch’s thick Islander accent. He’d always had trouble understanding the rolling speech of the Blasted Isles, and those from Vinda were the worst.

  “I think that man is under a spell. I would be grateful for any help you can offer, Sister.” John pointed to Jerun.

  “I do be the judge of who be under spells, Mr. Prefect,” Sister Tantos muttered as she waddled past John. The witch didn’t look convinced as she went into the cell to have a look at Jerun, who was still rocking in the corner, repeating, “It was me,” over and over.

  Sister Tantos knelt slowly and grasped Jerun’s head between her hands. “Let me have a look at him now.” Her wrinkles and dark make-up nearly swallowed any sign of her eyes as she concentrated.

  “Hmmm,” the witch murmured. She reached into her long cloak and rummaged around until she brought out a thick purple crystal and placed it against Jerun’s forehead. Then she began to chant.

  The memories of the herb lady in the marketplace flashed through John’s head once more and a shiver went down his spine at the haunting and alien sound of the witch’s voice.

  Bloody witches and spells. It just wasn’t natural.

  “Jerun, you be far away, but you return to us now,” the witch intoned, while somehow the chanting did not stop. “Follow my voice back, Jerun. When I do clap, you be wakin’ and rememberin’ all. All that has happened, be rememberin’.”

  She clapped and took the crystal from Jerun’s head. Jerun’s body began to spasm.

  “What’s happening?” John demanded. “What did you do?”

  “Not but what needed doing,” Sister Tantos hissed at him.

  Jerun’s eyes widened as he looked at John, and then he threw himself to the floor and began convulsing.

  “No!” the man shrieked, and grabbed his head. Blood began to run from his eyes.

  “There was a woman …” Jerun spit as he rolled to the ground. “A demon’s face! A dem – AHHH!” He screamed and clawed at the sides of his head, drawing deep gouges in his skin.

  “Stop him! Ned!” John yelled, but Ned was frozen in horror, just as he and the witch were.

  John finally broke out of his paralysis and flung himself on Jerun. White foam spewed from the man’s mouth, covering the front of John’s jacket.

  “Stop this!” John yelled at the witch.

  “It were only a hypnosis,” the Sister whispered, “it should have worked.”

  John fought to keep Jerun’s hands away from his face. A horrible gurgling sound rasped its way out of Jerun’s throat. “She’s in my head! Get her out! Get her out! Get her –” His back snapped taut with a crack, and John felt the man stop struggling beneath him.

  The man was dead.

  Sister Tantos was crying, grasping Ned in terror, whose own eyes were wide. It was then John made out what the Vinda witch was muttering. “Esmerak, it be Esmerak. Gods, Esmerak.”

  John didn’t know the name, but the horror in the old witch’s eyes made his skin crawl.

  “Who in the nine hells is Esmerak?” John stepped towards Sister Tantos and grasped the old woman by the shoulders.

  “Esmerak. It was Esmerak.” Tears slid down between the wrinkles of her face.

  “Who is Esmerak?” John repeated, and shook the witch hard to try and snap her out of whatever trance she was in; but it was Ned who answered.

  “It’s one of the painted cards they use,” Ned said as he stared down at Jerun’s bloody face. “Esmerak is the dreamer, the Queen of Nightmares, the mind diver, the soul twister, the mother of dark illusions. She is like a demon in the Blasted Isles.”

  “You’re telling me a Vinda demon decided to kill Jerun?” John growled.

  “She once was a Sister, the greatest. But she do be dead,” the witch whispered, looking with a tear in her eye at dead Jerun. “None but Esmerak could have done that to this man’s mind.”

  “Could this be a man? Could a man know this?” John asked.

  “No.” There was certainty in the old witch’s voice. “A man cannot learn the Vinda. A man has no resan, and this is of the deep resan. No, child,
this knowledge is known by a woman, a woman with a dark heart and more powerful than any I be knowin’.”

  “There’s two of them,” John said aloud. “Why didn’t I catch this before?”

  “Maybe this evil Vinda witch wasn’t needed before.” Ned shrugged.

  John snapped his head back towards the big constable. “What did you say?”

  “I said, maybe this witch wasn’t needed before.” Ned looked like a cornered rabbit. “Maybe you were too close this time?”

  The kid was right. That’s what had been different about this one – which meant the witch had been around for a while now, monitoring things. “You’re right,” John said. This had been the first time they had been in the city when the murder had happened.

  “Yes.” John clapped Ned on the shoulder. “Good job, constable. Someone decided to clean up after our boy this time. How do you like the title of Chief, Ned?”

  “Uh …” Ned said, holding up an eyebrow.

  “Don’t worry about it.” John patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll grow into it. I need you to get a carrier pigeon away. I want the constabulary ready in New Toeron when I arrive.” John stepped out of the cell and saw Miranda.

  “A ferry left early this morning and guess where its port of call is?” Miranda said.

  “New Toeron.”

  Miranda nodded.

  “You find us a boat?”

  “Yep, a quick little warship, two sails, twenty oars. Still don’t think we’ll catch them,” she answered, but Miranda was looking past him at what remained of Jerun. “Son of an Onai! What happened to him?”

  “I’ll tell you on the way.” John was already marching from the cell, pulling Ned with him. “Ned, escort Sister Tantos out, and then sign that transport requisition form on Gary’s desk, which is now your desk, Chief Ned. I am exercising my right of recommissioning in the name of our High King, Ronaston Mihane.” John pulled a writ out of his coat pocket with the golden seal of the High King on it.