“Yuna?” Echinni touched her bodyguard’s arm, and the giant woman shook with a gasp. She looked rattled as she looked around and sheathed the great golden sword so quickly that it might as well have never been drawn. Then she squinted, closing her eyes as if against a migraine.
“Yuna?” Echinni said again.
“I’m fine,” Yuna growled.
“I think we all need some food.” Kai looked at Yuna strangely.
All four left the courtyard feeling slightly dazed, and as if they should remember something, yet none could quite place what it was.
* * *
A solitary figure remained unnoticed atop the clock tower overlooking the courtyard grounds. Its oddly shaped hat protected it from the rain, its black scarf and grey cloak remained strangely still in the wind, and its red eyes swirled as it processed the meaning of the events which had unfolded below.
Something has changed. It knew that to be true. It was as close to a feeling as it would ever know. The flow had shifted, eddies were forming, and within those eddies … opportunity.
It had been navigating these currents for countless years and seen thousands upon thousands of permutations; but this … this was different.
Its eyes slowed in their constant cycling and it let itself report what it had seen.
Yes. It responded to the silent question which had been asked after it had reported.
And as simply as that, a new path had been chosen.
Maybe this time.
This had felt different, but its mind remembered one of its kin saying those exact words once before.
No. This time, it would be different. They had learned from their past mistakes. The lessons had been hard, but they had learned.
This time, it would be different.
It had to be.
For this would be the last time.
26 - Blood and Clues - John Stonebridge
Thurizas has been studying several large bird species colonizing many of the cliffs along the coast of what was once Farajun. It has reported an accelerated mutation factor in most, and they appear to have several thriving nest colonies. I am amazed by how well they are doing. I questioned Feyhu on what I thought were anomalies but it assures me the data is correct. Life is ever more inspiring.
We have agreed to call this new species “Rocs”, like the giant birds in the old fairy tales.
- Journal of Robert Mannford, Day 307 Year 23
There were times when John hated being right. The perpetrator was here, in New Toeron, and his killing of Princess Elise Syun had made him fearless.
The bodies had been found between rows of stacked wooden crates inside the warehouse John now stood within. They had missed him by a few hours at most.
The victims had been dockworkers; their colleagues stood at the entrance to the portside warehouse, shaken and horrified by what they had seen when they opened the doors.
John could still feel the wrongness in the air, as if the small piece of reality within the warehouse had been altered – as, in a sense, it had been. The memory of finding the grotesquely drained shells was imprinted on the minds of everyone who worked here. Their relationship with this space would never be the same.
He stroked his thick horseshoe moustache in contemplation while he catalogued everything in front of him. Emotion only clouded the facts; there would be time for that later. Right now he was an observer, detached yet focused.
As John surveyed, he wrote. Never looking down, letting his practiced hand glide across the pages of his journal. He tried to describe in painstaking detail every bit of minutia he could see. It was tedious, but this method of his had caught more vermin than anyone else in the Constabulary and was what had got him promoted to Senior Prefect.
A young man of about nineteen years of age lay in a large pool of blood with his throat slashed open so far that John could see vertebrae. A swathe of sprayed blood was on the crate to John’s left, and the footprints indicated that the victim had been running. John saw the scene play out in his mind. The killer had known his escape route and had reached the choke point before the young man, then surprised him with enough force to nearly sever the head and arrest any forward momentum.
Their killer had used these crates like a maze, and yet the murders couldn’t have been premeditated. Everything else pointed to a crime of opportunity and the killer had managed to quickly study the surroundings to use them to his advantage. The same killer could carefully plan out a precise assassination, and immediately adapt to a new environment. The combination spoke of high intelligence – but that was something John already knew.
John saw the same brutal efficiency displayed by the bodies of the next four victims. The fifth dead man had been hamstrung before having his spinal cord cut in just such a way to paralyse him from the neck down. The fifth lay huddled against a crate, positioned to watch what happened next.
The final dead man was of large build, thick with muscle from years of physical labour. There were hard scarred knuckles on his big hands; the man had been a brawler. Probably part of one of the bare-knuckle boxing circuits which were so popular here in the Docks District. Yet this practiced fighter had been systematically taken apart. Shallow, measured, and precise cuts lined the big man’s body. The accuracy of these cuts spoke of how the killer must have studied anatomy. Expertly placed and meant to enrage, while also to incapacitate. Our killer doesn’t like tough guys. He saved this one until last. There was a message here, a definitive expression of being able to dominate those who believed themselves strong. Does this monster have Daddy issues?
John let his pen stop and carefully closed his notebook, replacing it in his breast pocket next to the specially made pen holster. While he filled journals by the dozen and was careful with them, his pen was another matter entirely. It was handmade and a work of art in its own right. A special cartridge held the ink, and when he wrote with it, there was never an errant splotch. The nib was perfect and never wore out. He had refused the pen at first, as it was a gift, but the artisan had insisted on it as repayment for saving his little girl.
John loved this pen because it represented someone he had actually saved, and he always told himself it didn’t matter that the artisan and his daughter were Xinnish. But he knew that was a lie. Deep down, it mattered.
Whenever he went through Wadashi, he made sure to stop by that little pen shop, made sure to bring that little girl a piece of Asgur rock candy, and always spent a small fortune on the beautifully engraved steel ink refill cartridges. It was money well spent, even if John knew he was actually trying to buy forgiveness.
Ink refills and hours listening to the sermons and songs of the Singer faith. None of it was going to erase the scars of his past, but he had to keep trying, and catching this killer might nudge him a bit further away from damnation.
John stood and took one last look at the scene. Messier than usual. Odd. Yet all six had the eyes. Those cold screaming eyes, trying to tell him of the horror of their last moments. It was as if the peace of absolution, the slow fade into the afterlife as the body shut down, had been horribly interrupted.
And all six had been Xinnish. Halom was truly testing him now, challenging him to become better through placing paths to redemption at his feet. Yet try as he might, they had been too late to save these men. The killer was still out there, and he would kill again.
It was then John saw some odd-shaped blood marks. His journal and pen were in his hands without thinking.
“He kneels over them … at the end, I mean?” Miranda asked, grimacing. “Creepy.”
He kneels over them. It took John a moment to register why Miranda would say that, and then he saw it: the blood had coagulated around the exact spaces where two knees and two booted toes would have been. John could almost see the killer kneeling, close to sitting on his heels, watching the life ebb out of his victim. This moment at the end – this is why he does it. John was sure, it was almost ritualistic. And he would have missed it, if not for his ju
nior partner.
He turned now to look at Miranda. He should praise her, tell her she had talent for this. But then she absently twiddled the bone ring in her brow and John’s stomach lurched. “‘Creepy’ is a word which will colour your interpretation of the observable facts. Keep your own damned moral compass out of it.” He carefully replaced his journal and pen in their allocated pockets and straightened, gritting his teeth against his hypocrisy.
“Well?” he sighed, waiting for the inevitable retort.
“What? You’ve probably got a point, with the moral compass thing. Though that sounds more like theory and ideology than practical realism.” Miranda quirked her eyebrow at him and played with the jagged bone ring through her brow, grinning at him as she did.
“Stop that,” John growled, but it turned into a laugh. “Gods, you’re such a brat. How did you ever get into the Constabulary in the first place?”
“Talent. And the fact your superiors knew I would drive you crazy … but mostly talent.” Miranda pointed at the blood-free spots on the floor, “I’m right, aren’t I? He does kneel over them. The question is why? Oh, have you seen the big words written in blood at the back?”
John sighed; she was just so ... Xinnish. Old grudges and blood feuds had no place in this new world he was trying to help create. Change with it or get left behind. The words of his long-dead father echoed through his head. True enough, Pa, true enough – but he didn’t have to like it.
“What bloody words?” he snapped.
“You had better see for yourself.” Miranda pointed him to the back of the warehouse. When they reached the back wall, she retrieved a torch and held it aloft to illuminate the wall.
“‘This is but a taste. Death to the Xinnish dogs,’” John read aloud. “Now, this is different. It’s not quite right, is it?”
“Politics doesn’t seem to fit,” Miranda said. “I mean, I would guess this guy as a psychopath rather than a sociopath. Although there have been a lot of Xinnish corpses recently. Must take you back to the wars, eh, old-timer?” Miranda chuckled.
John saw red, and the anger surged through him.
“That’s not funny!” He could feel his heart thumping. “Do you know what I’ve done to stupid kids like you?! With that same too-smart-for-my-own-good smile? Do you!? How many I’ve left rotting in the gods-damned ground! So don’t twist that damned bone ring at me and think it’s funny. Don’t think it means nothing! You don’t talk about the war! You don’t know a gods-damned thing.”
He spun threw his sai with such force that it exploded right through the side of a wooden shipping crate. Grain spilled out of the hole punched in its side. John watched it fall into the blood on the floor as he tried to gain control of his breathing.
“Exactly,” Miranda said as she walked over and stuck her hand into the grain to retrieve his sai. “Who in the nine hells would try to start that war again? Certainly not anyone who lived through it. There are deep scars on both sides, John, scars that no one will talk about. Both the Xinnish and the Kenzians have buried that hurt so far down it takes ridiculous provocation to even get one of us to talk about it. Which then makes you think, if it’s not Kenz or Xin Ya, who would benefit from a renewed Border War?”
John panted, trying to make sense of her words, and as the cloud of rage cleared he could see the truth she was pointing him towards. She was right, the youth of Kenz and Xin Ya had made almost miraculous reparations between the two countries. They had made astounding moves towards peace within the new Salucian Union. It was only old codgers like himself who held on to their hatred. The killer wasn’t Kenzian or Xinnish. They had enough eye-witness accounts of the killer to know that he was from one of the southern islands.
Miranda handed the sai back to him almost delicately. “My father was on the other side from you once, John, when he was just a kid. He was at Huron’s Point.”
John cringed inwardly at the mention of that horrible battle.
“He survived, and won’t talk about it either. He hates himself for what he did, same as you.” Miranda gave him a sympathetic smile and patted him on the shoulder. “No one who had anything to do with those wars would want them brought back.”
John felt his throat tighten and he coughed a few times to try and clear it. Damn girl, she had seen right through him. Cut right down to his soul with a few words. She was bloody good.
The wheels in his head turned freely again, having cleared the mud of his emotion. He looked back to the blood-scrawled words on the wall. “How many people would you guess saw this, saw the bodies and the words before we got here, before we barred entry?” Something was starting to make sense.
“Must have been twenty to thirty people,” Miranda said, “death always draws a crowd.” She nodded as she silently packed a small lump of tobacco into her pipe.
“Princess Elise Syun had a reputation for philanthropy, she was well loved by her people,” John said, the pieces clicking into place now.
“Yeah,” Miranda said as she lit a stick in a lantern. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
Riots. He should have seen it. Lady take him, he was better than that. Stupid old fart. He should apologise, should praise this brilliant young woman who had been partnered up with him. She had seen it straightaway.
“Don’t.” Miranda shook her head as John opened his mouth. “You’ll probably have a heart attack or something, and then I’ll have to explain how I guilted you to death.” She smiled.
“Do you think it’s the witch?” Miranda finished her smoke and tapped her pipe against the heel of her boot. “That’s changed him, I mean?”
John nodded. He didn’t like where this was going. Not at all. “We need to move fast.”
Miranda put her pipe back into one of her pockets almost mechanically. “Six already, and this is only the first day. Halom help us.”
They had a job to do. His guilty conscience could wait. “Find that ferry. With any luck it’ll still be in port. Talk to the captain, get a list of names and physical descriptions of everyone on board.”
Miranda nodded; it seemed she had already anticipated what he had been about to say. “Meet you up in the Academy Registrar’s office?”
Yes, she had known. “Yes – hopefully we get lucky when we cross-check the names.”
Miranda sprang into the saddle of her horse in one fluid motion, then rode into the night towards the Academy port where the ferry had put in. John watched her go for a moment before he joined the group of constables waiting for instructions near the large wooden doorway of the warehouse.
She had to be Xinnish. He shook his head at himself. And, the Lady take me, she had to be bloody excellent. Well, he couldn’t let himself get attached, they were going to need excellent to stop what was coming, because every instinct he had was screaming out the same message.
Someone was trying to start a war, one that was going to rip this city apart.
27 - New Possibilities – Thannis
The invention of santsi globes has allowed the art of siphoning to surge forwards in leaps and bounds. The santsi allows the practitioner to draw in what was once barely controllable and store it safely in a temporary repository. This temporarily banked energy then allows the practitioner to control the level and type of flow back from the santsi globe, increasing both available power and level of precision for the siphoner.
The sand used in making the santsi globes is absolutely crucial to their efficacy. So far as we know, only the aptly named Santsi Sands of the Great Wastes have yielded sufficient conductivity when making the specialised glass of these globes. Further research into the sand used should be considered of paramount importance.
- Professor Attridge during a lecture in Introductory Santsi Creation, 2854 A.T.C.
Thannis made it back through the main gate of the Academy just before the enormous wrought iron gates closed. He might have still been able to get in after hours with the letter from his cousin on him, but he didn’t want to chance it on his first night.
Better to stay unnoticed and off the sentries’ radar. Continual lateness would be noticed, since these guards held themselves at attention and everything indicated that they took their duties seriously. Thannis made sure to kowtow appropriately, hoping to show just the right amount of humility for his lateness.
The guard sighed at him, but that was all. Thannis doubted this was enough to register in the guard’s memory, but he would make sure to avoid this particular gate for a few days if he could.
Within, the Academy was still abuzz with activity, and Thannis set himself to melting into the crowds to make his way towards the Research Wing. He had memorised the layout of the Academy grounds while aboard the ferry. As he flowed through the crowd, he caught snippets of conversation. Apparently an accident of some sort had cancelled the initiation ceremony. That was odd: these military types weren’t ones to let an accident stop something as important as tradition. Thannis listened for more information but most of what he heard was wild speculation and rumour, and while he wanted to know more, now was not the time.
As he navigated the maze of interconnecting outer gardens, squares and side streets, a thought began to trouble him. At the warehouse there had been moments he now couldn’t remember very well. It was like half the time he had been in a daze or dream state. And the whole attack, while satisfying, had been sloppy.
That bothered him … he was never sloppy.
He tried to think back to his kills at the warehouse, but just then his head began to pound as if a hammer was trying to break its way out. Thannis had to stop and brace himself against the wall of a small shop. He closed his eyes and forced his mind to take control of the pain, to own it, to dive into it and make it powerless, make it just another sensation.
In a few moments the pain had dulled to the equivalent of background noise in his mind. As he opened his eyes, he thought he saw a horrible face staring at him from across the street. A cowled woman with a tattooed white skull upon her face. Esmerak? What is she doing here?
Visions: Knights of Salucia - Book 1 Page 31
