by William Ray
Clearly Sylvester had realized he was not. Gus wondered whether the man had realized it back in Gemmen or only once summoned to the jail. Hoping Sylvester’s tone meant that he was just overly friendly, Gus put on a sheepish grin and said, “Oh, uh, yeah. I am an investigator, sir, just not with Chandler’s Crossing. I’m privately employed.”
Sylvester smiled placidly at the confession, then said, “And I was told you’ve found your man? Doctor Phand, I assume. How did that land you in here?”
Gus summoned up his most professional tone for reporting and thought Emily would have been proud of his demeanor under the circumstances. “I found the kidnappers here in Khanom, still dressed as Wardens, and they came after me with knives. I discharged my pistol in self-defense, and they fled, but then I was picked up for blazing a gun in the city.”
Sylvester nodded thoughtfully as he digested that information, then asked, “And now you know where he is? Tell me.”
Gus’s instinct was to prevaricate—the closer to a sure thing he seemed, the more likely Sylvester would be to handle his fine to set him back on the trail, but as the city’s foremost businessman watched him quizzically, Gus found he had an unusually hard time with it. After a couple of false starts with versions of his story aborted before leaving his lips, Gus sighed and offered a blunter truth than made him entirely comfortable.
“No, but I’m close to finding him. His kidnappers are here in town, so he must be as well, and I know it’s some organization bent on stopping that tower from being built. I’m very close to solving it, sir, but they rolled me before they locked me up, so now I can’t pay my fine.”
For a moment, Sylvester just blinked at him, then laughed, shook his head, and said, “You called me down here, hoping I’d pay your fine? You think I’ll pay to set you loose on this … what, secret society? These elf-less Wardens?”
“I’m very close, I promise.” Gus wondered if he should offer up what he knew of Ulm’s involvement but hesitated, reluctant to give Sylvester more information for free.
Sylvester wore a thoughtful expression as he considered the request but ultimately shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, Mister Baston, but I can’t involve myself in this sort of thing. You’re running in the streets, shooting at people the police say weren’t there, and you’ve not actually seen Doctor Phand at all. Even if you’re really on to something, it just would be inappropriate for me to be seen setting you loose after all that.”
Sylvester offered an apologetic smile and just shook his head to deter the objections Gus was already bubbling forth. Without further farewell, he turned to depart, rapped at the hall door, and quickly greeted by the deferential guard, who was still eager to impress his visitor.
* * *
For time uncounted, Gus lay on the cell’s hard bench, staring at the ceiling and trying to forget his various aches and pains. Had anyone asked, he would have told them he was considering the case, but the truth of the matter was he had pushed aside most conscious logic and was simply staring as he tried to stall the dreaded inevitability of sleep.
Once the Crossing responded to the Khanom constable’s wire, he would no doubt be held in here for days more until they came to retrieve him. With no reward, Emily would be upset about the money wasted on this trip. Gus felt he was used to being a disappointment and used to lean times, so his biggest regret would be failing to avenge Louis’s murder. And perhaps failing to forestall Phand’s.
That gloomy reverie was ended as the guard rapped at the barred door with his truncheon, causing a loud ring that struck Gus like a knife to the temple. “Mister Baston?” he called as if his prisoner had not just been rudely rattled at and was due some level of common respect. “You’ve got another visitor here.”
Gus looked up and saw the smirking figure of Drake’s detective, Eli Allen. The man wore a light-colored suit and a pale hat as if he were on summer holiday and swinging by to call on an old friend. Doffing the hat, Eli called in, “Gus! You’re looking a bit … rough. I was told they just brought you in here for shooting at ghosts.”
Pushing back to his feet, Gus tried to brush out his own suit, only now noticing the discolored splotches where it had been stained by whatever awful fluids leaked across the floor of the alley he’d been knocked out in. No wonder Sylvester had decided he was a bad bet. Donning a carefree smile, he replied, “Well, that is how I won my Stars, so I’ve got to stay in practice.”
Eli arched his brow at that and, sounding skeptical, said, “You fought the Lich King?”
“Oh, it wasn’t much of a fight. He was dead when we got there.”
Eli chuckled at the line and said, “Ghosts don’t usually hit back so hard in this part of the world. I guess afterward, you just tripped and fell.”
Gus took the hint, nodded his agreement to go along with the story, and said, “Clumsy me. So what brings you here?”
Eli grinned and replied, “I’ve been told to get you back out. Unless you refuse, my employer has instructed me to pay your fine.”
Gus’s mind raced, only occasionally tripping over his own thoughts as the sharp pain in his head throbbed. What did Parland’s willingness to pay to have him sprung mean? If Ollie Clarke thought he was a serious suspect back in Gemmen, then the Crossing would have tossed his office by now and would have found the thing sitting in his desk drawer, and no doubt Parland would have heard.
Realizing that meant he wasn’t going to be arrested when he got home, Gus smiled at him and said, “Much appreciated. Tell your boss I’m very close. Lots of good leads.”
The Drake’s man nodded and gestured to the guard, who unlocked the door and swung it open.
~
“Tuls Lost in Gedlund”
A formal demand for investigation has been presented to the Marshal of Gedlund by the Workers’ Revolutionary Committee regarding the disappearance of several Tuls soldiers stationed along the northern side of the Gryphus range, which divides Tulsmonia from Gedlund. The Marshal has disclosed to reporters that strangers were reportedly seen in the village of Faandyal, along the western edge of the region known as the Valley of War.
According to locals, the spirits residing there rise from their graves each night to continue a battle begun over a thousand years ago. It is the opinion of natives to that region that Tuls soldiers may easily have been mistaken by those spirits as partisans in their eternal conflict. The Verin forces garrisoned in that region refused Tulsmonia’s direct request to locate the remains of the missing soldiers, saying that such a recovery mission was both dangerous and impractical.
– Khanom Daily Converser, 14 Tal. 389
~
- CHAPTER 23 -
Dorna and the others waited all night for Dougal to emerge from the Oblivion. The other Wardens had emerged one by one into the Master’s sanctuary, but he had not. As soon as the two men who had entered the Oblivion after Dougal remarked upon his absence, Dorna knew that he must be dead.
The antechamber in which they waited was cold and uncomfortable, furnished only by a single gas lamp and two uncomfortable wooden benches. It was never intended as a place to wait, and with murmured apologies to those who remained, one by one the Wardens passed through into the meeting room beyond.
Eventually, only Dorna, Terry, and Marjorie remained. After their weeks on the road together, Terry and Dougal had grown closer, if not close. Marjorie was married but had been having an affair with Dougal for the past two years. Her husband was a horticulturalist who maintained the city’s parks, but not a Warden himself, and Dorna wondered what he thought Marjorie was doing on her late nights out.
Dorna knew he must be dead but could not yet bring herself to walk away. She felt the chill emptiness of guilt gnawing at her heart. In the next room, they gathered to celebrate her return, and that moment of her congratulation was the only reason Dougal had met her in the alley instead of here.
Across from her, she could hear Marjorie whispering over and over, and the c
adence of her recitations tickled at the back of Dorna’s mind. Dorna knew those Elven words so well, and she longed to lean closer, to hear them more clearly and, even more, to recite them. The triumph that had made her reject their easy comfort seemed suddenly hollow.
Stubbornly, Dorna pulled her robe tighter against the chill and leaned back on the bench. If Dougal had just died, why should she feel comfort?
She watched Marjorie’s face smooth over, the worry gradually washed away by the comforting words of faith, but it was a momentary thing. The woman’s expectant stare gradually grew glum again, and the frown lines gradually deeper as she stared at the black curtain separating them from the entrance of the Oblivion.
It had never occurred to Dorna to imagine a hard man like Dougal being loved and perhaps even in love himself. To the Master, he had merely been one tool of many, and Dorna supposed she had seen him in much the same way. To Marjorie, this plump woman who always smelled of flowers, he had been much more.
Dorna felt a twinge of envy. Dougal, who was so ruthless in their cause, who had murdered and more, had someone faithfully waiting, staring at that black curtain and praying for his safety. If Dorna had vanished in the darkness, her absence would be noticed, but she knew no one would shed the tears for her that now welled in Marjorie’s eyes.
Marjorie wiped her eyes on her sleeve, then looked up to Dorna and said, “We should go tell the Master. He … he sees better than we do. Perhaps he can go find him.”
The words struck Dorna with an electric force, and she sat up straighter, feeling all the blood draining from her face. “No!” she said, at first unsure why the idea horrified her so. Marjorie looked confused and perhaps betrayed, and Dorna realized that was exactly the sort of reaction she most feared—just not from Marjorie.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “This is our responsibility. We … he and Terry and I, we brought that man into this,” although, she thought, only at the Master’s instruction. Somehow, they had done it wrong. Somehow, she had revealed too much. “This is something we must fix ourselves. Right, Terry?”
She looked over at him, and Terry was a picture of wide-eyed confusion. The intensity of her stare overcame him though, and he replied, “Yes?”
Marjorie frowned at the both of them, then turned her eyes back to the curtain. Sensing an opening, Dorna said, “This way, we get revenge for Dougal. If the Master does this, if he settles it for us, then … then we may not get to play our part.”
That seemed to work, and Marjorie slowly nodded and said, “He had a couple of friends I know that would probably help. With five of us, we could, maybe.”
Terry shook his head and said, “But he has a gun.” Looking to Dorna he added, “You said he was a soldier. You said he got the Queen’s Stars for fighting in Gedlund, right? I don’t even know where to get a gun!”
Dorna frowned at him, and Terry shrunk back, but she knew he was right; Dougal was their killer, and he was gone. Perhaps Marjorie was right too—the Master would know what to do about this. He would have to find out eventually, but the idea of going to him in failure brought a tight lump in her throat.
What would he do to stop a dangerous man like Baston? When she was in his office, Baston had actually laughed about slaying an immortal, and now her failure had brought him here.
Suddenly, those thoughts clicked together, and she remembered one of the Master’s treasures sitting in a room just up the stairs. She could bring Baston to a standstill, and then she could approach the Master with both her failure and a way to triumph over that failure.
Dougal was gone. Now she needed to be the ruthless one.
~
“Traffic Difficulties Move Northward”
Snarled traffic from the southerly districts is expected to move gradually northward and is expected to strike at 1st through 3rd on Queen’s over the next week. This latest instance of local improvements is an electrical installation upon a magnificent scale: the street trams to be used for the forthcoming Exposition.
According to the Exposition Council, even our wide Elven roads will be unsuited to the service of the increasing population expected to visit during the Expositions festivities. Much has been said about the extraordinary speed shown during the past twelve months in building; but so far, per the Mayor’s promise, no open capital has been raised from the public.
– Khanom Daily Converser, 15 Tal. 389
~
- CHAPTER 24 -
Waking in his own room, Gus eagerly peeled off the rumpled and filthy suit he had fallen asleep in and took few moments to clean himself up. The room had its own water spigot with a basin, so he rinsed himself and freshened his shave before putting on a dark brown tweed that was decent enough that the gentry wouldn’t think him a working man but not so nice that a working man might mistake him for gentry.
He never had gotten his gun back from the constables and doubted they would give it to him if he asked for it; chances were it had gone the way of all the money in his wallet.
After luring in the crooks on his first night at Rondel’s, Gus had hedged his bet on them and put nearly half of his peis into the hotel safe. Checking his wallet, he confirmed he must have retrieved those funds last night. He might need to skip a few meals, but at least the constables hadn’t rendered him destitute in a strange city.
Emily would be upset at the loss either way, but train stations were usually filled with poor saps who had been robbed and hadn’t the money to get back home. Thinking back on it, he hadn’t seen anyone like that loitering around Khanom’s pristine main hub, and he doubted that was due to an unusually strong spirit of generosity. Beggars were probably relegated to the hubs down below, and Gus made a mental note to take a careful look at a rail map later for the best one in which to beg his fare, just in case.
Going through his pockets after changing, he found a rumpled note stuffed into his dirty jacket, and fishing it out, it appeared to be on the hotel’s stationary. Although he had no recollection of receiving it, it was balled up to fit his hand, so he suspected the front desk must have handed it to him on his way in last night.
Flattening it out, he recognized Dench’s sharp scribble and could easily imagine the message in the man’s petulant voice. Girl may be Dorna Michts. Grew up in KMC dormitories, south. Ask there. – A.D.
Dorna Michts. Was that really the false Alice Phand? If he’d known the name just a bit sooner, he could have tried it out to watch her react.
He wondered if she was also the D.M. from the letter he had found in Saucier’s house. Although not completely certain, Gus thought KMC probably meant the Khanom Mineral Company. How could a girl from the mines be mixed in with the likes of Ulm? If she were the D.M. from Saucier’s letter, who had entrusted her with sending such an expensive bauble as that elfsteel buckle?
Pondering these questions as he left the hotel, Gus paused to wink at the desk clerk on duty, the same man who had given him the slotted key. Keeping the resident thieves wary should keep the contents of his room relatively safe while he was out in the town, although he supposed now all that was left to be stolen were his shaving kit, his clothes, and a few bullets.
There were no cabs waiting outside, so he wandered south along Queen’s and began watching traffic for one. It was the weekend at last, and the daytime streets seemed less bustling than they had the day before. Judging by the sun, his recovery from the evening out had let things slip to midday, and he wondered if the Drake’s detective was any better off. Gus’s recollections were fuzzy, but he had no memory of triumphantly drinking the man under the table.
He wanted to comb over the alleyway the Wardens had vanished in, but if he wanted to talk to people who might know this Dorna Michts, his best chance would be today. As much as Detecting-Inspector Clarke liked to brag about physical evidence, Gus knew the answers to most mysteries came from people.
The alley would be just as there tomorrow, but the miners would be harder to reach. They would be re
turning from temple just now, assuming they went, and from there, like all good people, they would go out for a drink. Gus didn’t know enough about mining to know when they started their workday, so he wasn’t sure when they would leave the public houses and head home, which meant he needed to head there before it got too late in the day.
With most offices closed, the cabs were sparse, and the few he spotted had passengers already. Hoping to have better luck on a busier street, Gus made his way down to Queen’s. His leg was stiff, so he paused there to stare across the street at Miss Aliyah Gale’s building.
As he loitered, a black carriage with lace curtains pulled to the front of the building and waited there. Realizing who that must belong to, Gus began fording the avenue, thankful that the day’s traffic was slow enough that he could manage it without being run down.
When he reached the opposite corner, Gus saw Miss Aliyah Gale emerge from the building in a dress of shimmering green. She boarded the carriage, and it began rolling northwards, past the corner on which Gus stood.
He ran as best he could, in order to keep up as the carriage pulled past, then leapt onto the step below the door and grinned through the window at the carriage’s lone passenger. As much as he hoped to impress upon her that he was not some sort of urban highwayman, the smile he gave her was as much to hide the grimace of pain from the jolt that jump gave his leg.
Her driver reacted quickly, shouting indignantly, and sparing the horses the lash of his buggy whip as he awkwardly swatted back at Gus with it instead. Wincing between swats of the driver’s whip, Gus called out, “Miss Aliyah Gale! I’m … oww! I’m Gus Baston! I’ve been trying to … oww! Stop it! Trying to reach you to talk about Doctor Phand!”
When her surprise at his sudden appearance in her window wore off, Miss Aliyah Gale gave a languid sigh and nodded in acquiescence. Looking towards the driver, she pronounced, “That’s enough. Let him come in.”
