Crusader

by Andrew Smith

  Which was just as well. It may take a while for her pursuers to find her, but she had no doubt that they were out there. That was the thing about nasty assassin creatures: they tended to travel in herds. She wondered if they even let people hire them one at a time, and then how they would pay them. She could hardly see a giant ant-thing traipsing into a bank to make a deposit, but she didn’t picture them being paid in buckets of rolled oats either.

  She went down the radial street that would bring her out round the block from Mme. Rumella. It was less than three yards across here, and poorly lit. She suspected this would be the place, even before she heard the scuttling noise behind her.

  “Oh my,” she said theatrically, preparing her Focus all the while, “it sounds as though I am being pursued. Whatever shall I do? I cannot run, for they would surely catch me.”

  When she turned, she saw two ant-creatures, one the same size as the one that accosted her earlier, and one much larger, stepped into the meager light. One bared a pair of pointy white fangs and hissed at her.

  “I’m Mary,” she introduced herself. “You’re the ant-like assassin. Or six-legged spider assassin now that I look at you. Either way, I believe you have a communiqué for me, something of the ‘your meddling is not wanted, now die! variety, perhaps?”

  “Well,” said one, in a polite British accent, “that is the gist of our message, that and then we kill you, naturally.”

  “Naturally,” Mary agreed. She gestured with her head towards the larger ant-spider-thing. “Doesn’t he talk?”

  “Not a skill which Master was able to teach him I’m afraid. He’s more than a bit thick, but he gets the job done, you know.”

  “He looks as though he might,” Mary remarked. “So that’s Master? As in not Mistress?”

  “What difference is it to you?” the creature inquired.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know who killed you?” Mary asked.

  “Yes, I suppose, but we’re under rather strict instructions not to reveal too much, on the chance you live,” the ant-spider replied, and chuckled.

  “Yes, that would be funny,” Mary said evenly. “I suppose we’d best to it, then,” she suggested. She leapt high into the air, nearly reaching the tops of the buildings. The word for this spell was the word ‘feather’ in an old African tribal language, one of the forest tribes who used it to leap from tree top to tree top. The speaking creature said something to the effect of ‘no sense in putting it off’ as she flew. She shouted the Gaelic words for ‘two fires which soar’, a twist on the spell which Mary herself had come up with. Twin jets shot from the tips of her dual batons, pushing her higher into the air. The smaller ant-spider proved fairly maneuverable, and scuttled out of the way, but one fire scorched the rear section of the larger creature before he could move out of the way. His two rear legs and part of a third shriveled beneath him and he sank to the ground.

  Mary was slowly coming back down. The smaller creature maneuvered itself into position below her. There was only one way she could think to change her trajectory now, and it wasn’t a bad one. She conjured the fire again, one baton pointing at the ground, the other horizontally away from her. The smaller creature scuttled out of the way again, with one slightly singed leg. The fire consumed the air, and new air rushed in to take its place. Mary was pushed up and over to the nearest rooftop.

  She quickly put both batons in one hand, turned them just so, and they were her spear. After a moment’s hesitation, she whispered the word ‘poison’, in a language so old no-one knew what it was. Her spearhead glowed a sickly green, and she threw it at the larger creature as it tried to drag itself away on its forelimbs. The creatures hissed and writhed in pain as the sorcerous poison spread. Mary saw the terrible greenish color spreading through its oversize blood vessels even at this distance. Her spear removed itself from its target and flew back into her hand. It took her a moment to locate the other one, crawling at her up the side of the building. With alarming speed, it was suddenly there on the rooftop, coming at her with fangs bared. She swept her spear in an upward motion even as it entered her hand, and it became her shield. The ant-spider’s fangs broke against it and it hissed in rage.

  “You’re much less talkative when you’re angry,” Mary informed it, as she jumped back, and leapt once more into the air. She rolled her shield over her wrist. By the time it was back in her hand, it was a baton. A jet of flame scorched the roof where the creature had been standing, and pushed Mary a little higher. The feather spell was so ubiquitous, Mary was surprised that the creatures weren’t built for jumping. Her arc through the air had brought her down in the curving street. The ant-spider threw itself off the roof behind her, landing on the spear-like ends of its legs. It wobbled a little thanks to its burned leg. Mary launched a spinning crescent kick, almost falling when her leg jarred on the creature’s sturdy exterior.

  The kick seemed to have thrown it at least as much as it had her. She raised her baton and fired a bluish-white ball of energy straight at the creature’s face. It broke through just above its mouth. A faint glow from the point of entry traced the sorcerous projectile’s path. It ran out of energy part way through, but it had done its job. The creature fell lifeless to the dirt surface of the road.

  The force-of-light spell was a common offensive spell, its power increasing according to the spectrum. Many people could only cast the red version, which was akin to a good, hard punch. Mary had the whole spectrum down so pat she could cast all of them without even saying the words

  Mary sighed disconsolately and headed back down the dark alley, emerging on the other side and taking another right turn, back to the tea shop. The fight lasted a while longer than would have liked, but that was the problem with low level sorceries. More powerful sorceries tended to have a lot more collateral damage. Mary tried to avoid them whenever possible, though she herself was possessing of several of the Alta-Signas, the highest sorceries, which could be conjured but not always controlled. There were several Alta-Signas from each order of sorcery, though of course, no-one knew how many exactly. It was one of the many details of sorcery that were obscure, Mary suspected, for the sole purpose of keeping life interesting.

  A couple of ant-spider...things could hardly be expected to rattle me, Mary thought, much less kill me. Unless someone didn’t really know much about me.

  Or unless that was the point, to not rattle her. She had spent nearly four centuries gaining her reputation, and most people knew it. Maybe it was Ruin. Toying with her. She tried not to be angry, he would want that. She succeeded in being only mildly irritated.

  She entered the store to find six platters of baked goods hovering over the counter. “Does that keep them fresh?” Mary asked of Mme. Rumella, who was just tucking her wand back into one of her apron pockets.

  “Perfectly fresh, dear. How was your walk?”

  “Not as informative as I’d hoped,” Mary sighed.

  “Pardon?”

  “I was attacked again.”

  “Oh my.”

  “As I expected.”

  “I see,” said Mme. Rumella in the tone of those who don’t quite see

  “But the one ant-spider creature that was smart enough to talk was also smart enough not to say too much.”

  “How sad. They’re ant-spiders now are they?”

  “They do look more like spiders, only with six legs.”

  “How odd.”

  “That’s what I thought. I’ve also been thinking that there can’t be too many people out there thinking I would be taken by giant insecty minions.”

  “Then why send them?” Mme. Rumella inquired.

  “I think whoever it is may be taunting me,” Mary explained.

  “That’s not very clever of them, is it?”

  Mary shook her head. “No, it really isn’t.”

  * * * *

  Aside from the regulars, it was fairly slow at Mme. Rumella’s. Leila had only gone to work to fetch the Osiris papers, and was sifting through them ov
er cappuccino at a table in the corner.

  “Time to go, pet,” said Mme. Rumella, rounding up her platters. They hovered before her as she moved over to Leila’s table

  “What?” Leila asked distractedly.

  “We’re going to the Mulhoy.”

  “Wait, what? Why?”

  “To talk to people, see what we can figure out.”

  “Alright, but won’t the detectives Mary hired do that?”

  “Probably. That’s no reason why we shouldn’t go as well. They may tell one of us something they wouldn’t tell the detectives.”

  Leila paused a moment before continuing. “I don’t think they’ll be too happy about the uninvited guests, do you? I mean, I went poking around there by myself, and got nothing. We’ll need some sort of pretext.”

  “Leila, you’re a member of the academic community. Surely a visit by someone from the British Museum wouldn’t be too unusual.”

  “Well, no,” Leila replied. “As a matter of fact, the Mulhoy uses our resources all the time. Someone was over just a few days before that guy was kidnaped. But what about you?”

  Mme. Rumella smiled. “Cookies pet,” she said as though Leila were missing something obvious, “cookies.”

  * * * *

  The Mulhoy was in the Fourth Quarter of the city. Mme. Rumella decided to cut inward to the right ring of time along the radial streets, then followed the curved street counterclockwise to the institute. As they approached the building, two figures approached them from the street. They all walked up to the door together. The woman was slightly shy of Leila’s height, and had a mass of auburn curls. Her companion was tall, thin, blond, and clean shaven. Almost. There was a question hanging on the air. Leila, one hand on the door, was the first to ask it.

  “Are you... Are you the detectives?”

  “Yes,” the woman replied, almost relieved. “You must be the friends Mary told us about. Grace Owen,” she said, extending her hand.

  “Leila Lanstrom,” Leila introduced herself, taking Grace’s hand.

  “Dr. Leila Lanstrom,” Mme. Rumella corrected. “And I’m Mme. Rumella.” She flicked her wand from right hand to left in order to shake Grace’s hand. The cookies bounced in the air but didn’t topple.

  “Van,” said Van with a small wave

  “Lovely to meet you sir,” said Mme. Rumella. “Shall we?”

  Leila held the door. At the front desk, they all introduced themselves and split up to speak to people. Mme. Rumella went last.

  “I am Mme. Rumella,” she told the receptionist, “of Mme. Rumella’s Tea Shop. I have dozens of delicious, complimentary cookies to share with you and the rest of the staff.”

  The receptionist blinked. “Why?”

  “Advertising, my dear, advertising.”

  “Uh... Okay. Got anything with chocolate in it?”

  Mme. Rumella smiled, “I do indeed.”

  * * * *

  Leila herself had never been to the Mulhoy Institute before the (alleged) kidnaping, and, having only recently become a citizen, was curious to find out exactly how you could run an institute for imaginary languages. The two branches of study were divided into separate wings. Seeing as the building was originally a vocational school, the Imaginary Languages Wing contained an automobile repair bay, which had been converted into storage.

  Leila wandered through the offices and classrooms and lab rooms. She heard a woman talking, and peeked in through the slightly-ajar door. As Leila had suspected, she was talking to herself. She knocked on the door and said, “Excuse me, I was just wondering-”

  The woman turned, looked at a piece of paper on her desk, on which a pen was busily writing. “You ruined my dictation,” she screeched. “Get out!” Leila froze. “Get out, get out, get out!”

  Leila rediscovered mobility and bolted down the hall

  * * * *

  “My name’s Grace,” said Grace lightly. She set herself down on a spare chair amidst a bank of desks that had replaced the student desks in a converted classroom.

  The middle-aged man sitting at the desk was examining an old scroll through a magnifying glass. “Uh-huh,” he said

  “Do you have a name?” Grace asked with an easy smile

  “Probably,” came the curt reply.

  Grace was used to being treated as a nuisance, and pressed on. “Listen, I heard about this guy, Clement Jones, and-”

  The man tightened. The tension was so obvious Grace stopped talking. “Go away,” he said.

  * * * *

  Van Jefferson walked down a hallway in the Extinct Languages Wing. He saw a rather attractive young woman, and an old cliché about birds and stones passed briefly through his mind

  “Hi,” he called to her.

  The young woman stopped. One arm was full of books. She smoothed her long skirt with the other. “Hi,” she replied. Van couldn’t place her accent, but he liked it.

  “How are you?”

  “Good,” she replied. “You?”

  “Fine, thanks. I’m Van,” he said.

  “Tricia,” she replied.

  “Nice to meet you,” he smiled. “You know, I’m looking for a friend of mine, do you think you could direct me to his office?”

  “Sure, I’ll take you right to it,” Tricia smiled back. “Who’s your friend.”

  “His name is Clem Jones,” Van started, and before he could continue, Tricia’s face darkened. She turned on a dime and trotted off down the hall as fast as her skirt-wrapped legs would carry her. Van just stared for a moment before following. “Tricia! Tricia, wait a minute!”

  * * * *

  Mme. Rumella swung her floating horde of goodies around a corner. There was a muffled ‘oof’ sound, followed by a heavy thud.

  “Oh my,” she mumbled as she followed the trays around the corner to find a man, apparently in his thirties and wearing an Ethiopian flag pin over his heart, lying on the ground.

  He stared at the cookies in a scrutinizing manner. “Would you mind terribly explaining something to me?”

  “I’m so very sorry,” she apologized, offering her hand. The man was much larger than the squat Mme. Rumella, so the gesture was more symbolic than anything. The man brushed off all manner of invisible dust from his clothing as Mme. Rumella told him her name, and that she was here to promote her tea shop, and subsequently offered him a cookie.

  “Are these macadamia nuts?” The man crunched through his cookie with relish. Mme. Rumella apologized again and offered him another. “You are very kind,” he told her

  “I just thought you could use some cookie comfort down here, what with all the recent goings on,” she replied. “You must be on needles and pins around here lately!”

  The man studied her. In the pause Mme. Rumella handed him another cookie. “As I have said, Mme. Rumella, you are a kind woman, but it would be best not to ask questions. Nobody here wants to admit what happened to themselves, and they certainly do not want to talk about it. I for one have no information to offer as I did not know Mr. Jones well at all; he was not a social person.”

  “Thank you very much anyway, sir,” said Mme. Rumella, pressing another cookie into his palm. “One for the road,” she said with a wink

  * * * *

  Leila had stopped by two more offices and been rebuked both times. She saw an Asian woman sitting on a sofa in a small lounge area created by the intersection of two large hallways. She had learned not to lead with the subject of the missing man. The second person she had visited had left an impression. It was on the far wall, where the paperweight hit. She thanked heaven for her dodging abilities, honed over the past year of working at the museum, where there were always objects being levitated from around the building whizzing by.

  She collapsed in a chair opposite the Asian woman, who appeared to be in her late forties. “Hi,” she said.

  The woman, sipping coffee from a mug marked ‘Suki’, set down her cup and returned the greeting.

  “I’m Dr. Lanstrom from the British Mus
eum,” Leila introduced herself.

  “Nice to meet you,” Suki said with precise and deliberate speech. “I am Dr. Suki Marion. I work here,” she added.

  Leila wasn’t sure whether that was meant to be a joke, but she smiled politely as she told Dr. Marion her first name. “I’m here to shake hands and meet people, that sort of thing. The British Museum is proud of the relationship we have with the Mulhoy Institute, and we would like to express our solidarity.” It was a clunky transition, she knew, but at least the subject was out there.

  Suki Marion raised an eyebrow. “Solidarity?”

  “Yeah, with this whole kidnaping thing. We know you must be outraged, and nervous too. Hell, I’m so nervous I’m sleeping at the tea house across the street.”

  Suki laughed politely. Leila smiled. Now she was getting somewhere.

  * * * *

  “Did you see a cute African girl in a long skirt come by here?” Van asked.

  Grace shook her head.

  “I was trying to question her,” he explained

  “I don’t think ‘what’s your phone number’ qualifies,” said Grace, leaning up against the nearest wall.

  “I did not ask her for her phone number.”

  “Only because there’s no phone service here,” Grace rejoined

  “That and she ran away before I could get that far.”

  Grace laughed. “Back to business, though: do you get the feeling that people here are frightened out of their wits.”

  Van nodded. “And these are the brave ones,” he commented

  Grace frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean there are an awful lot of desks covered with stationary and personal belongings with no people behind them. I’d say this place is running at half capacity. Everyone else probably opted for a sudden extended vacation.”

  “You’re so observant,” she said lightly.

  “One of us has to be.”

  “If I had the energy I would so elbow you in the ribs.” Neither of them said anything for a moment. “I hope the others are having more luck than we are.”

  * * * *

  “Personally, my interests lie in the imaginary, but I did have some contact with Clement. I am currently working on a thesis about the creation of the Vestal language,” Suki Marion explained.