“That’s them,” agreed Nestor. “And this one is no different than the others. Every bit as quarrelsome. When the first war ended and their lands lost, Dimmerk Fell dropped his surname completely.”
“Ah,” she said. “Was there ever violence between Kol and Dimmerk?”
Nestor sipped his beer. “Hard words only, as far as I know,” he said.
“What was the substance of their dispute?”
“Well, Dimmerk is on the glory road, isn’t he? When his family went to ruin he took to religion, joining the Church of the Crucible, and you know how they are. All fire and brimstone, death and damnation. Not that I can blame him, of course. His whole family was torn apart by the Khaslani and they were cast out as beggars. When he came here to Anaria he had nothing but the clothes on his back and he’s been preaching hellfire ever since.”
“I thought the preachers of the Crucible were supposed to forswear all earthly pleasures and live in poverty and humility,” I said.
“Poverty? Aye, Dimmerk lived that part of it straight enough, but humility? Well, that’s a different kettle of cod, isn’t it?”
Frey twirled her fingers, encouraging him to continue his narrative.
“Well, Kol was a religious fellow and a deacon of the church—the church of Father Ar and Mother Siya, you understand. But Dimmerk was beginning to draw quite a crowd with his Crucible rantings and with displays of fireworks that are supposed to be symbolic of the furnaces of hell. You know how that is, telling people what they want to hear so they get riled up. He was filling them with talk of fiery vengeance raining down on the Khaslani and on the politicians from our side who agreed to give away all that land. Retribution and justice can sound mighty appealing when you’ve lost a lot, and we have a lot of refugees here in town, as all towns do, I suppose. War’s like that.”
Frey and I nodded sad agreement.
“At first, Jeks Kol and Dimmerk would nod to each other if they met on the road or in town, but over time Dimmerk tried to convert Kol to his way of thinking. He thought that a blacksmith should devote some of his time and resources to making swords, shields, and armor instead of only ploughshares and door hinges. He said that a righteous man had an obligation to support a crusade against the pagans.”
Frey sighed very loudly and heavily. Nestor, though a servant for the church, nodded agreement.
“Fanatics never help, do they?” he asked, which drew a faint smile from Frey. I could see her warming to the beadle.
“Go on,” she encouraged. “When did things go bad between them?”
“Well, it was when Dimmerk began showing up at prayer meetings Kol was holding in a little arbor behind his cottage. It wasn’t much, just some families in the neighborhood who liked to get together and talk about scripture. Harmless stuff, good for everyone who was there. And Kol wasn’t proselytizing, I can assure you.”
Although there were evangelists in the Church of Father Ar and Mother Siya, they were there more to make the teachings of the Parents of All available to those who wanted them; they were expressly forbidden to disparage anyone else’s faith or force acceptance on anyone. The Church of the Crucible was the complete opposite, with its adherents believing that it was their sacred duty to convert everyone to their god’s path of violent purification.
“Dimmerk would come to those meetings and begin shouting Kol down, arguing with him on points of faith, handing out broadsheets and religious tracts to the people there, and demanding to know why Kol, a blacksmith, could possibly fail to recognize the god of the holy crucible to be anything but the one true god.” Nestor paused. “Now, understand, Kol was a good man but not a patient one, and he did not suffer gladly any attacks on his friends or himself. After one of the meetings he took hold of Dimmerk by the collar and the seat of his pants and actually threw the preacher out of the arbor. Some say he threw him into the pond, but I think that may be embellishment. In any case, it was the last time Dimmerk intruded upon one of those prayer meetings. But here’s the odd thing, Mother Frey—a few weeks later Dimmerk came to Kol and apologized—very profusely I’m told—and begged forgiveness. Kol, being a good man, was swayed by this and went so far as to embrace Dimmerk. From then on they became friends. I won’t say fast friends, but close. And Kol even let Dimmerk work for him at his smithy in exchange for food and a bed.”
“Kol seems to have been a good man,” I suggested.
“He was that, and he was a rock who kept many people hereabout steady in these troubled times. What happened to him was a tragedy,” said Nestor.
“What happened?” asked Frey.
“It was the strangest thing you ever saw,” said Nestor, his voice even more hushed. “Kol was making a delivery of a new set of gates to one of the houses in the hills. He had taken the gates down and set them in place and was shaking the hand of the man who had hired him when he suddenly cried out and staggered, his chest bursting open as if he had been stabbed, but there was no one else there. Only the old man who had hired him and his two sons.”
“They were questioned?”
“Indeed. The constable had them go over it a dozen times and I went through it twice as often. The story was always the same. One moment Kol was alive and the next he was dead, struck down by some otherworldly force.”
Frey gave him a shrewd look. “Where was Dimmerk when this happened?”
“He said he was working at Kol’s forge, and when the constable went to interview him—for of course he was suspected based on the hard words of earlier—there Dimmerk was, hammering away on the anvil.”
“And it is your opinion that Dimmerk was not involved?”
“No…” Nestor said slowly, “but the man makes me nervous. Since Kol’s death he has returned to his fire-and-brimstone ways. He still lives at the blacksmith’s place. Kol had no family and besides, Dimmerk insists that the blacksmith had promised him a permanent place there. And since he is also a skilled metalworker, he has kept up with all of Kol’s business commitments and has turned the income over to the dead man’s family. However, he has begun using the arbor to hold his own meetings, and they are full of anger and yelling. He says that his friend Kol was a good man but one who was misled and who suffered punishment for it. He says that the Red God of the Crucible struck him down as a warning to all who refuse to see the truth.”
“Ah,” said Frey.
“He said that Kol was struck down by the ‘hammer of god,’ and that everyone needs to heed the warning in order to escape a similar fate.”
“And yet there have been other victims,” said Frey. “Were they associated with Kol or Dimmerk?”
“With Kol? No. But at least one of them knew Dimmerk. I don’t know his name, but he came to town looking for Dimmerk, claiming to be a friend from the old days before the first war. Someone in town gave him directions to the Kol place and the man was later found dead on the road, struck down in what appears to be the same manner. No arrow, no spear, just a chest burst apart. His money belt was even on his person. When we questioned Dimmerk he claimed not to have seen the man, and it was so dry we could not determine if the stranger’s horse had ever reached the Kol place or not. The horse was found wandering in the forest, and its flanks were streaked with blood, so the stranger must have been in the saddle when the hammer of god struck him down.”
“And the others?”
“All strangers to these parts,” said Nestor. “Two were killed on the same day only seconds apart. They were diplomats from the Office of Treaties who were on their way to the capital after having a series of meetings with our enemies among the Khaslani. Rumor has it they were close to signing a treaty that would have ended the war.”
“I’ve heard those rumors, too,” I said. “The talk was that, had they lived, the diplomats would have arranged an end to hostilities that would have ended the conflict but left the Khaslani in possession of even more of the Coastlands.”
Frey nodded. “Their deaths were a blow to the diplomatic process. The Khaslani ap
parently believe that a cabal within our own government executed them for agreeing to a deal that favored our enemies.”
“Is that true?” I asked.
Frey didn’t answer, and Nestor picked up the thread of his narration. “The ambassadors were killed on the open road that runs past the village, struck down amid a retinue of forty armed men. The soldiers scoured the hills but could find no trace of Khaslani spies or assassins. The deaths were impossible to explain. So, it was because one of these men was very important that we sent a request to the Office of Miracles.”
Frey touched my ankle with her toe, sending me a message that I did not quite understand.
“And now we have this latest one,” said Nestor. “A man who is a complete stranger and clearly no one of importance.”
“Of no importance?” echoed Frey. “Everyone is important.”
“No, I did not mean they were unimportant in the eyes of Father Ar and—” began Nestor, but Frey waved it away.
“Important to the investigation, I meant. We were not able to examine the other corpses.”
“Oh. Of course.”
“First thing in the morning I will go speak with Dimmerk,” announced Frey. “Please provide Sister Miri with directions. That will be all for now, Nestor.”
“I hope I have been of some assistance in this matter,” said the beadle.
Frey offered a cold smile. “More than you know.”
-3-
That evening, as we settled down to sleep—Frey in the bed and me on the floor—we talked about all that we had learned. Or, at least, Mother Frey had me go through it all, point by point.
“And what do you think about all of this, my girl?” she asked. “Have you formed any working theories?”
“I am lost,” I confessed. “The evidence is so frightening.”
“In what way?”
“Well, this ‘hammer of god’ appears to be exactly what Nestor and the others in town believe it is. It seems as if this Dimmerk is quite right that his god has struck down those who deny his reality.”
I heard a very long sigh in the dark. “So after all that you have seen and heard today, you feel that this is an act of some homicidal god?”
“I—”
“No other theory suggests itself?”
“What else could explain it, Mother?” I asked. “Witnesses saw men struck down by some invisible force. We saw firsthand an example of such a wound, and no arrow or sword would do damage of that kind.”
“And a god is the only other possible answer?”
“What else?”
She chuckled. “Perhaps a good night’s sleep will sharpen your wits, girl.”
And with that she fell silent. After a few moments I heard a soft, buzzing snore.
-4-
We were up at first light, washed, dressed, and out the door, eating a light breakfast of cold game and cheese as our cart rumbled out of town. Nestor had offered to accompany us, but Frey declined and we followed a set of directions that took us out of the cluster of buildings that formed the village and back into the mountains. Kol’s smithy was five miles up a winding road, and we rolled through morning mists past groves of nut trees and farms crowded with sheep. The sun had not yet cleared the mist when we reached a gate hung with a sign proclaiming: HOME OF THE RIGHTEOUS.
Frey studied that sign with cunning old eyes, then she turned and spat over into the shrubs beside the gate with excellent accuracy and velocity.
There was a turnaround in front of a modest house with a thatched roof. There were a half dozen smaller buildings—sheds and barns—scattered among the trees. At one end of a clearing was the brick smithy and beyond that was an arbor made from spruce trunks and covered with pine boughs. Two dozen mismatched stools and benches filled the arbor, but it was otherwise empty. We sat on the wagon for almost two minutes, allowing whomever was home to make themselves proper before opening the door. No one did.
“There’s smoke,” I said, nodding toward the chimney above the smithy.
I helped Mother Frey from the wagon and she leaned on me as we walked to the clearing. There was a sound of clanging from within and I had to knock very loudly before the hammering stopped. But it was nearly a full minute before the door opened and we got our first look at Dimmerk. He was not very tall and had narrow shoulders, which seemed at odds with his skills as a blacksmith. His arms were strong, though, and he had fresh burns on his hands, wrists, and right cheek. Gray eyes peered at us from beneath bushy black brows and he wore a frown of suspicion and annoyance.
“Who are you to come knocking so early?” he demanded, standing firm in the doorway, blocking us from entering.
Mother Frey introduced us both, and that seemed to deepen the man’s frown.
“What business have you here?” he asked. There was a sneer of contempt on his face and in his voice, and he emphasized the word you as he looked at us. His distaste for nuns was evident, though it was unclear whether his displeasure was at our being from the Church of the Parents of All or because we were with the Office of Miracles.
“We are here to discuss the murders with you, brother Dimmerk,” said Frey.
“Murders?” He barked the word out with a harsh laugh. “There have been no murders that I know of.”
“You stand in the smithy of a murdered man.”
“I stand in the smithy of a sinner struck down by the hammer of god,” he growled.
“Kol was your friend. He took you in, gave you food and shelter, accepted you into his household.”
Dimmerk nodded. “Aye, Kol did all that, but if you think he did it out of the kindness of his heart, then you are as great a fool as he. Kol hoped to convert me, to encourage me to stray from the path of righteousness.”
“If he was so great a sinner, then why did you come to live with him? Why do you stay here and continue his work?”
“I came because my god demands of me that I accept all challenges to faith, old woman,” said Dimmerk. “A man like Kol was a special challenge because he was influential in this town. He corrupted many with his false prayer and false teachings. He led good people astray with lies and witchcraft and kept them under his spell, drawing them to the edge of doom. Countering the secret evil of his heresy was a special challenge. The Red God of the Crucible does not call on its ministers to preach to the faithful but to spread the word of truth to those who do not believe, and to save the souls of those who had been corrupted by false prophets.”
“I see,” said Frey.
“Do you? Or are you such a one as Kol, who comes with smiles and open hands to lead the unwary to their damnation?”
“It is not my practice to proselytize, as well you know.”
“Do I?”
“You are from the Eastern Coastlands, Dimmerk. Your family name is Fell, and the Fells were always of the Church of the Parents of All. How is it you are now on the road of fire?”
I saw the changes on the man’s face as Frey’s words struck him. The light of righteous rage seemed to slip and fall away as if it were nothing more than a mask worn by an actor. Beneath it was something colder, more calculating. Every bit as hostile, though, but without the wildness of religious zeal, and that made him dangerous in a different way.
“You know my family?” he asked, his voice oddly calm.
“I knew your grandmother. A good woman. Known for her silver jewelry. It was quite lovely.” Frey touched his arm. “I was sorry to hear that she died.”
Dimmerk’s gray eyes seemed to fill with shadows and then he abruptly turned away and walked inside, leaving the door open. Frey winked at me and we followed him inside.
The smithy was a large room with a high ceiling that tapered upward to a broad smoke hole above the furnace. There were sturdy worktables and anvils, heaps of scrap metal, a hundred projects in various stages of completion, ranging from a ploughshare to a full set of ceremonial armor. Most of the stuff was covered with a light coating of dust. Dimmerk picked up his hammer and spent a few m
oments banging at a piece of iron that had clearly already gotten too cold to work.
Frey stopped at one table on which were several long metal poles. She bent and studied them, and I followed her example, and was surprised to see that the poles were hollow. What the purpose was for these metal tubes was beyond me. Frey picked one up and scratched the curved edge with her fingernail.
“Steel,” she murmured.
It was steel, and finely made, but why roll it into tubes? The narrow opening would not reduce the weight of each pole enough to make the process worth the effort.
On the edge of the table was a slatted wooden bucket filled to the brim with small round balls. I picked one up and was surprised by how heavy it was. Frey took it from me, nodded to herself, and put it back. Then she ran her finger along the top of the table and showed it to me. There was no dust.
Dimmerk threw down his hammer and came over to us. He glanced at the table and its contents and then at Frey.
“That’s nothing,” he said quickly. “A commission. Something ornamental.”
“I see.” Frey looked around, then crossed to another table on which were rows of small tubes made of paper. She picked one up, squeezed it gently, sniffed it, and handed it to me when I joined her. To Dimmerk she said, “Still making fireworks?”
“Yes,” he said guardedly.
“They’re awfully small,” I remarked. “Are they firecrackers?”
He didn’t answer but instead took the firework from my hand and placed it back on the table. “What is the purpose of this visit?”
“We are investigating the deaths of Kol and four other men,” said Frey, “each of whom died in the same strange way.”
“It isn’t strange,” replied Dimmerk. “They were struck down by the—”
“Hammer of god,” Frey interjected. “Yes, so I’m told. You seem certain that this is why Kol was killed, but what about the other four? Were they also heretics?”
“They must have been,” Dimmerk said. “Why else would they have incurred the wrath of god?”
Thirteen Authors With New Takes on Sherlock Holmes Page 28
