I was glad someone thought so.
“Erin is kind of thinking the same way you are,” Risa continued.
What, he thought I thought I knew everything? I didn’t act like that. Did I?
“You know, that you were nice, but he didn’t think there was anything there between you.”
Well, that was a relief. Obsessive admirers were overrated.
“He really admires how you think, though. Erin, I mean.”
“Does he?” He could have fooled me.
“He says it’s very interesting.”
Ah. “Interesting.” Not to be confused with “good.”
“He says it’s like you see patterns in ideas or events that the . . . average person doesn’t see.”
I wondered what word she had been about to use before so hastily substituting “average.”
Risa leaned over the small table between us. “I’m telling you this because I know you’re worried about Karish,” she said in a hushed voice, “but it goes no further, all right?”
I frowned at her. “We’re in a bar.”
“Aye, and everyone’s too drunk and too noisy to be overhearing anyone else.”
I thought that was an optimistic estimate, but it wasn’t my secret.
“Erin was telling me about those clubs you were talking about. The gentlemen’s club and the ladies’ society with the same name. The Raiborn Societies. So I decided to look into it.”
Look into what? Maybe it was a little unusual but it couldn’t be criminal to have two clubs with the same name. “Aren’t you kind of busy right now?”
She shrugged. “Almost every Runner in the city is looking for the aristocrats, with no hope of finding any of them alive. I think we can spare a few hours of my time hunting up a different mystery.”
Here was to hoping I never went missing in High Scape. “So what did you find?”
“Turns out the mysteries aren’t so disconnected after all.” She smirked in triumph. “Every single one of the victims were members of either the Raiborn Gentlemen’s Club or the Raiborn Ladies’ Society.”
Good Zaire. “Why wasn’t that discovered before?”
Risa drew back a little. “Half a dozen reasons,” she said stiffly. “The clubs are less than a year old. Both of them. Most of us have never heard of them. And none of the victims belonged to any of the established clubs. They’re all minor aristocrats, many I’ve never heard of before, and no one really paid attention to them before they went missing. Why would I, for example, hear the name Lord Thom Derring and think oh! he belongs to that baby new Raiborn club that has nothing to do with the life of any person I know?”
Yes, yes, that all made sense. Sort of. But I would have thought investigating all their associations would have been standard procedure. Then again, I wasn’t a Runner. What did I know?
“Erin told me one of them tried to pick Karish up in the street. Is that true?”
“Aye.”
Risa frowned. “It makes no sense for them to ask him to join. He’s been totally cast out of the class.”
I didn’t know that cast out was the right way of putting it. He stepped out, of his own initiative. “Maybe it’s the blood that’s important to these people, not the title or the class.”
And Zaire, did that strike a chord. Hard.
“What?” Risa asked.
Which meant my shock had shown up on my face. Damn it. “A Reanist approached me on the street and asked me to bring Karish to them.” It was hard not to snarl. Of all the nerve.
Risa nearly choked on her ale. “To be sacrificed?” she demanded.
“Apparently.”
“How stupid did he think you were?”
“She tried to persuade me it was my duty, as a Shield.” I had to wonder, though, if she had really expected me to agree with her and comply with her demands. No matter how deluded she was, she had to know I thought differently. “She said that my first priority as a Shield should be stopping the disasters altogether, eliminating them before they start I guess, even if that meant handing Karish over and dying myself. I said what you said. That Karish wasn’t a lord anymore, was never going to be a lord. She said it didn’t matter. It was the blood that counted.”
“Alarming parallel,” said Risa.
But not one that piqued her interest, I saw. “There’s no chance that the Reanists are behind this?”
Risa shrugged again and popped a syrup nut into her mouth. “We looked into it, of course. Standard procedure whenever an aristocrat is murdered or goes missing. But Reanists really don’t do as much as people believe they do. It’s too hard for them to find a foothold anywhere. Usually, if you’re going to plan a murder, you need a place to plan from.”
“I’ve seen Reanists about High Scape. They must be living somewhere.”
“In tents. For as long as the owner of the land doesn’t know they’re there. Then they get kicked off and have to move on.” Risa crunched into another syrup nut, then she grimaced, as though its taste were off. “Maybe some desperate or indifferent innkeeper is going to let them rent a room,” she continued after swallowing quickly, “if he doesn’t fear they’ll drive out his other customers. But even in that case, that’s not enough room to keep a victim for this long without being discovered.”
“You’re assuming the victims are being kept instead of killed.”
“Well, we haven’t been finding any bodies anywhere. That’s not necessarily conclusive, but getting rid of a body without being seen and without it, you know, popping up somewhere unexpected, is harder than you might think. To get rid of a series of bodies without being caught requires access to something. A pig farm. Or land to bury them. Or familiar use of the rivers. Which, again, pretty much eliminates the Reanists.”
I really, really didn’t need lessons on the safe and effective disposal of human bodies. Thanks.
“And before you even get to that, there’s the sacrifice itself. They don’t just grab their victims and stake them, you know. There’s a ritual to it, and the ritual takes space.”
“Oh.” I’d never thought of that. I’d never really thought of Reanists much at all. I’d studied them in history, at the academy, but that had been about who they were, where they had come from, what they had done, what had happened to them, and a superficial explanation about their beliefs. Like a lot of things I studied, had never expected to come face to face with them. I’d only started worrying about them when my High Landed Source went missing the year before. But I should have figured that a bunch of religious fanatics wouldn’t kill their victims with nothing more than the stake through the heart. If they used a stake. That would be really hard. “Do they really stake people?”
“Aye. I think they think metal perverts the body, or something like that.”
“But that would be easy to fight off, I think.” I was trying to visualize it. Unless the victim were asleep or drugged, or tied down, it would be hard to force a stake into the right place in order for it to kill. Though, no matter how it was done, it had to hurt like hell. What a way to go.
“I guess that’s what the ritual is for.”
“So what’s the ritual? Do you know it?” And did I really want to hear about it? It was bound to be gruesome.
“I’ve never seen one, but they do tell us about it. So we can recognize it if we come across it.” I found myself wondering about the kinds of things Risa had to know about, had to see. Wouldn’t want her job. “For one thing,” she said, “the space has to be properly laid out.” Seeing that I had no intention of drinking my wine, Risa dipped her finger in and drew a square on the table. “There are four points to it, representing the four directions, and the points are supposed to be marked with the four elements.”
“The earth, water, fire and air thing?”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it? They’re trying to control the world, so the ritual area should represent the elements.”
“Huh.” Didn’t seem terribly original to me.
“Now,
ideally—from their point of view—there should be enough victims to form a circle within the area, all facing inward.” She drew a circle within the square. “The master of the ritual is supposed to be part of the circle, seated at the northern point, which is represented by fire. The master is the Reanist who called the victims to the circle. The other Reanists are to circle around, outside the circle of the victims but still within the sacrificial area.”
“All right.” Already seemed too complicated.
“Now, it is important that the victims embrace their roles—”
I had to interrupt there. “Embrace being sacrificed?”
“Hey, I didn’t make up the rules. I’m just telling you what I’ve read. And that’s what they say. The victims have to be happy to be there.”
“What, do they raid an insane asylum?”
Risa just gave me a look and went on. “The victims get a final meal. Has to be meat of the mountain mammal—”
“Meat of the what?”
She shrugged. “Wine of the new moon.”
“What’s that mean?”
“No idea. And essence of bee and bovine.”
“Sounds vile.”
“Apparently the gods would be most offended to have unfed victims. They must be well fed, well groomed, superior in mind and body and talent.”
“Ah. The whole aristocratic myth.” Because, of course, it was a myth. I’d met aristocrats who hadn’t been near a bath in months, and had no talent to speak of.
“Apparently so.”
“But then, wouldn’t they refuse to eat, if they knew that would keep them from being sacrificed?”
“Maybe they don’t know. Or maybe they starve them first.”
Which took us back to the theory of the Reanists needing a place to keep their victims for a while. Especially if they were collecting them in order to make this circle of theirs. “Still, a meal for a starving person isn’t going to make them embrace being sacrificed.”
“I don’t know. Hunger can make people do strange things.”
Well, for one thing, I remembered, it made them very lethargic. Maybe it made them susceptible to suggestion. But they would have to be awfully susceptible to welcome being sacrificed.
“The kicker though, and the reason why we think the Reanists aren’t involved in these disappearances, is that the area must be encased in stone. Apparently the Reanists believe there’s some kind of invisible airy substance that leaks from the body as it dies, and it just floats away into the sky. Only stone can contain it, and it must be contained in order for the gods to be able to collect it. That’s what they really want, the airy stuff. Not the bodies.”
So then why was it important for the bodies to be well fed and well groomed? Did they think the state of the body affected the quality of the airy stuff? I’d wager the Reanists came up with that for more practical reasons. Who wanted to be around the unwashed?
Try to focus, Lee. “So this isn’t a set up they can throw together in an hour and roll up again when it’s time to leave.”
“And Reanists can’t own property. Not in High Scape, anyway. They can’t build something like that here.” Risa frowned at her sketch. “Still, maybe I should look into any new construction going on in the city. Just in case.”
“Wouldn’t hurt. Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s found a way around a law.” Oh, listen to me, the world-weary, experienced one. But hey, I’d read books.
Risa snickered. “Ain’t that the truth?” Then she sighed. “It’s a horrible time for Crown Prince Gifford to be coming to High Scape. Why in the world doesn’t he cancel?”
I raised one finger. “He said he would come.” A second finger. “He wants to show his interest in the most valuable city in the world when it’s going through hard times.” A third finger. “He’s not about to be run off by a bunch of cowardly murderers. Or kidnappers.”
She scowled. “Aye, aye, aristocratic pride, damn it all to hell. Funny how it never kicks in when someone asks them to work or do anything else useful. But that damned party. Half the aristocrats in the city will be there.”
“So will a whole legion of extra security,” I reminded her. “This is Lord Yellows, remember. The richest man in High Scape. With the Crown Prince as the guest of honor. No one’s going to be able to breathe without at least three other people knowing about it.”
“I can’t be too sure about that,” Risa muttered. “The Captain offered to have Runners on the property. His Lordship, apparently, was most offended.” The last two words were spoken with an attempt at an aristocratic air. “Gave the Captain quite a dressing down. Reminded him that his family had been providing protection for people on his lands for longer than the Runners have been in existence. Was the Captain daring to presume the people carefully chosen and trained by his Lordship were unable to perform their single purpose? Was the Captain daring to suggest his Lordship would be so treasonous as to endanger the life of the Crown Prince? Perhaps the Captain would be better off concentrating his attention on his own duties and solving the problems that were plaguing the Runners instead of interfering in the business of others.” She scrubbed at the wine sketch, as though attempting to mop it up. “The Captain was fuming. And so much fun to work with for the rest of the day. I hate stupid people.”
I grinned at her. And yes, I was unsympathetic. It was nice to know others were experiencing professional frustrations. Aye, aye, I was petty.
“But we’re going to have Runners around the property,” said Risa with satisfaction. “At some places we’ll have the house in view. And if one of us accidentally wanders onto the grounds, well, horses can be difficult to control.”
“Isn’t that trespassing?” I asked the solicitor’s sister.
“Bah! Don’t bother me with trifles.”
I chuckled.
The server returned with a drink for Risa. A tall thick glass filled with dark, dark liquid, topped with a creamy beige froth. Risa glared at the server as she set it on the table. “Were you brewing it back there or what?” she demanded.
The server was unapologetic. “Did you want it properly pulled or what?” And she slipped away before Risa could respond.
I looked at the exotic beverage. “What is it?” I asked.
“It’s beer.”
I took a closer look. “It doesn’t look like any beer I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s because it’s a new brew. It’s called Roofer’s Black. Not many people have heard of it. Plus it’s—” She cut herself off and took a reverent sip, giving herself a beige moustache. “Mmmmmm.”
“Plus it’s expensive,” I finished for her.
She shot me a hard look and took another long sip.
“So you got that promotion, then?”
She set the glass on the table with a thud that rang of irritation. “No,” she snapped. “Anand did. A very worthy Runner.”
“I see,” I said, and I swore not a hint of disapproval showed up in either my expression or my voice, but Risa found a reason to get angry anyway.
“Shove off, Dunleavy.” A third deep gulp from the glass, with an air of defiance.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. I know what you’re thinking.”
“If you know what I’m thinking there’s no reason to talk about it.” I didn’t want to get into an argument over Risa’s spending habits.
“Oh, so you think you should be able to sit there in silence and judge me and I should just shut up about it, is that it?”
I sighed. “Are you spoiling for a fight or something?”
“You haven’t got a bloody clue,” was her heated response. “You have no idea what it’s like to want things and know you can’t afford to have them. Ever I mean, look at this.” She raised her glass. “It’s just beer. It happens to be good beer. Why should I have to settle for the watery swill most places serve? Why shouldn’t I be able to drink the beer I like? Or wear the clothes I want? Or live where I want to live?”
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She’d said all this before, and I sympathized with her. Really. But my sympathy wouldn’t keep her out of debtor’s prison. “I didn’t make the rules, Risa, and I’m not saying they’re right or fair. But we still have to live by them.”
“We?” she echoed incredulously. “We don’t have to live by them. I do. You don’t.” That was uncomfortably true. “It’s all right for you to tut-tut my spending habits while you’re dining on beef every night. Try earning your pay for a while.”
She didn’t mean that the way it sounded. At least, she’d better not. I earned what I had, just not the way most others did.
Noise exploded into my ears, so loud and so sudden I gasped and jerked in my seat, bumping into the table and knocking over the mugs. When I came back down I grabbed the edge of the table and tried to stop my brain from spinning long enough to figure out what the hell had happened.
Drums. Gods be damned evil drums. With pipes. What, was someone marching off to a war somewhere? And if so, could they stop calling to arms and just get moving to wherever they were going? Who played music like that in a tavern? Any moron barkeeper who played such music deserved to have his furniture torn apart.
All right. Had to get out of there. I jumped to my feet again, urged on by the music. I somehow managed to trip over my own chair. I fell against a body.
The body pushed back and I almost lost my footing completely. “Watch where you’re going, bitch!”
The music poured through my veins. Without thinking at all I struck out. “Get out of my way!”
Heat exploded along the side of my mouth. I charged, reached out.
I was grabbed from behind, jerked back sharply. Someone was screaming into my ear. I screamed back, with no idea what I was saying. I scrambled against my restraints, scratched at them to no effect.
I screamed again, in outrage, as I was lifted off my feet. I felt air moving, a curious swooping sensation. I kicked out, trying to find some footing, and I couldn’t. Nothing I could grab onto would stay still.
One more swoop and then a hard, unpleasant impact. Solidity against the palms of my hands, my cheek, torso, the front of my legs. But the world had stopped moving. That was an improvement.
The Hero Strikes Back Page 18
