The Emperor's Mask (Magebreakers Book 2)

by Ben S. Dobson

  “You didn’t know what you were walking into,” Tane objected. “It was my idea to go in to begin with. And we did find what she was hiding, to be fair.”

  “I’m happy to blame you both,” Indree said, glaring at the two of them. And then her shoulders fell. “It doesn’t really matter now. I’m the head investigator in name only at this point. Chief Durren has a likely suspect, and as far as he’s concerned, if he brings down the Mask before Lady Abena returns, she can’t very well punish him for pushing me aside while she was away. He’s leading the charge against Senator Uuthar.”

  “You don’t think she did it.” Tane knew that tone in her voice—she had doubts. “You think he’s focusing his attention in the wrong place.”

  Indree shrugged. “We know she didn’t kill anyone, at least not directly. We’ve questioned her staff, and her alibi holds. The current theory is that she had the ogre do it. He’s got the size and strength you talked about, and wouldn’t need magic if it was all artifacts.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a much stronger case,” said Tane. “Doesn’t it seem a bit convenient? After all this, the Mask just keeps his costume in his top drawer? And dear little Odeth didn’t particularly strike me as the silent assassin type.”

  Kadka nodded. “When I fight Mask, was different than ogre. Both are strong, but ogre is more like wild animal. No control.”

  “Exactly,” said Tane. “Would you send an ogre to do anything that requires the kind of finesse we’ve seen from the Mask?”

  “I wouldn’t, but I’m told she demonstrated some power over him.” Indree didn’t sound particularly convinced. “Simple minds can be dominated by magic. It’s not impossible.” She sighed. “The truth is, there are a lot of questions I’d like to ask Senator Uuthar, but Durren isn’t letting me in on the interrogation.”

  “How does he think she did it?” Tane asked. “Controlling her son through sendings, fine. It’s possible. But how did she get him through all the wards and detections?”

  “It’s not actually an awful theory,” said Indree. “Ogres have a very simplistic Astral link. Similar to wild animals, like Kadka says. And even the strongest Astral wards tend to allow for that kind of limited sentience, or we’d have dead birds sliding down wards all over Thaless. It’s not quite enough to allow an ogre by default, but Noana Uuthar was a frequent guest at every house the Mask targeted. She could have accessed the wards at any time, altered the animal exemptions just enough to admit her son. An adjustment that small would be nearly impossible to detect, unless someone was looking for it. We’re going over the spells again now, and there are some indications of tampering.”

  “It’s… plausible,” Tane admitted. “But—”

  “But nothing. Your opinion isn’t needed here, Carver.” Chief Durren strode into the holding chamber from the corridor that led to the interview rooms. “You’ve been lucky a few times, but we’re building a real case here. Which you don’t know a thing about.”

  “Did you get anything more from her, then, sir?” Indree asked.

  Durren frowned. “What more do you want, Lovial? The diviners say she’s lying, and she had the mask. You just explained how she had the means.”

  “So is no, then?” Kadka said with a mocking grin. “Can’t make her say more, after this long?”

  Durren didn’t respond, just scowled and looked to Indree. “Get rid of these two. We don’t need anything more from them. You two can consider yourselves lucky I don’t want to muddy the senator’s arrest, or I’d be charging you both for breaking onto her property.”

  “Wait,” said Tane. “You talked about means, but what about motive? Why would she have killed those people? She was acting suspiciously, I’ll grant you, but I probably would too if I had a secret ogre in my basement. Wanting to keep her son close doesn’t make her a killer.”

  “You’re asking me… You were the ones sneaking around her estate! Suddenly you can’t think of a word to say against her?” Durren’s cheeks flushed red. “You want a motive, fine. Jealousy. She had to hide her son while so many houses groom their non-magical offspring as future Protectors of the Realm. She couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “I don’t think—” Tane began.

  “I don’t care what you think,” Durren snapped. “Lovial, I need to notify the Lady Protector of my findings. I want these two gone when I come back. And see that Senator Uuthar is put in a holding cell until I’m ready to speak to her again.” He crossed the room and let the door slam behind him.

  “I need to talk to the senator,” Tane said as soon as Chief Durren was gone.

  “What?” Indree shook her head. “No. Even if I wanted to, I can’t put you in an interview room with her. There are guards on the doors, and they’ll have orders from the chief. If Durren hears I tried, I’ll be in an even worse position than I already am. Besides, you’ve done quite enough. He was right about one thing—you’re lucky you haven’t been arrested already.”

  “If there’s even a chance she didn’t do it, we’re risking the real Mask going free,” said Tane. “Your diviners say she’s hiding something, and I think I can get her to talk. If there’s something else there, Kadka and I can still act on it, even if you can’t. Don’t try to tell me this story about the ogre feels right to you. I know you better than that.”

  Indree looked at him for a long moment, and then she said, “I’ve got my orders. She needs to be moved to a holding cell.” She strode away toward the interview rooms.

  Kadka got to her feet, stretched out her neck and shoulders. “Is time to go then, yes? If we can’t see—”

  Tane held up a finger. “Give her a minute.”

  Indree emerged from the corridor, leading Senator Uuthar and a pair of ogren constables. Just common sense, that—if Uuthar decided to resist, no one else was going to be able to stop her. Walking at the head of a nine-foot-tall procession, Indree looked no taller than a gnome.

  She led the senator to a bench near Tane and Kadka. “Wait here a moment. We have a private cell for you. I need to make sure it’s ready. I’m sure I can trust you to behave—I’d rather not have to cuff you.” Then, turning to the pair of ogren bluecaps, “On the door, just in case. I’ll be back shortly.” Indree gave Tane a pointed look, and then strode down the opposite corridor toward the holding cells. The ogren constables followed her orders, taking guard positions over the chamber’s only exit to the outside.

  Which left Tane sitting beside Noana Uuthar, largely unsupervised.

  He leaned closer and kept his voice low. “Senator Uuthar. I wanted to ask you something. Indulge me?” Kadka moved to stand between them and the guards, lending some degree of privacy.

  The senator turned her head slightly to look down at him with sad, tired eyes. “You have questions? So do I. Why would you do this to my family? They took my son from me, Mister Carver.” The way she said it, it didn’t matter that her son was an ogre, or that she’d broken the law—just that Tane and Kadka had broken her family apart.

  Tane swallowed and forced himself to look her in the eye. “I’m sorry, senator. That wasn’t our intent. But we didn’t put that mask there, and if you can’t explain where it came from, you have bigger problems than being separated. If they think he’s killed people, they’re going to do a lot worse than just sending Odeth to the sanctuary. They know you’re hiding something. If it can help him, you have to tell me what it is.”

  She shook her head. Again, that fear in her eyes. “No. I can’t. He’ll… it’s too dangerous.”

  “They’ll execute your son, senator. If you haven’t noticed, no one else is very inclined to believe your innocence, or his.” Spellfire, this is low. It had better work.

  She didn’t say anything for a time, just hung her head in defeat. And then, “Very well.” A deep breath before she went on, in a barely-there whisper. “Some weeks ago, I received an anonymous message from a person or persons who knew about Odeth.”

  “What sort of message?” Tane asked. “Do yo
u still have it?”

  The senator shook her head. “No. It was a letter without originating address, charmed to incinerate itself shortly after I read it. It contained instructions to support certain pro-magical proposals in the Senate. To protect my son, I did as I was told. Each week further instructions came, and I had no choice but to follow them as well. I didn’t know who was behind it until today, but…” Her hands trembled in her lap. “It had to be the Mask. Who else could have put those things in Odeth’s room? And if he could do that… Mister Carver, he can get into my home. My family isn’t safe. If I talk to the constabulary…”

  “Senator, if you would come with me.” Indree was back. Sooner than Tane had hoped, but he knew she’d given him what time she could. She motioned to the ogren constables, who approached to escort Senator Uuthar to her cell.

  “Please,” Noana Uuthar whispered urgently. “I’m telling you the truth. I can’t speak freely to anyone else. You two have to stop him.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  _____

  “YOU BELIEVE HER,” said Kadka, leaning back in her chair with her feet on Tane’s desk.

  “I think I do,” Tane answered “I wish I didn’t. It would be easier if this ended with her.”

  He knelt beside the bottom cabinet in the desk, where he kept the apparatus that operated his office wards. A flip of a switch and it was active, draining power from gems he could scarcely afford. But it was worth the cost, given the circumstances. His office wasn’t much—a cheap single room at 17 Tilford Street in Porthaven with a folding screen at the back that hid the mattress he slept on—but it was all he had. The Mask wasn’t sneaking onto this list of exemptions. While they were up, Tane’s wards allowed only himself, Kadka, and Indree to enter.

  “Is something about sad mothers with you. Always works.” Kadka didn’t grin her customary sharp-toothed grin. She’d been curiously reserved since the incident at the Uuthar estate, Tane had noticed.

  “It’s not that,” he said. “It was the way she acted. She was genuinely afraid.”

  “Could have been faking.”

  “I have a feeling that she wasn’t.” Tane lowered himself into his desk chair, pulled a near-empty bottle of cheap whiskey from the top drawer along with two glasses, and filled one for himself. He gestured to the other and raised an eyebrow at Kadka; she held up a hand to decline. That’s… unusual. “It’s all too easy, is the problem,” he said, taking a sip of his drink. “We happen upon the Mask at the Deepweld manor just in time for a heroic rescue. The size of the attacker leads us to the Uuthars, and their strange activity in the senate. We find extremely incriminating evidence sitting in a top drawer. The Mask is caught, everyone goes home happy. Including all the extra guards and security.”

  Kadka frowned. “You think all this is part of plan?”

  “Imagine that somehow the Mask, or whoever the Mask is working for”—Tane didn’t say Knights of the Emperor aloud, but he knew Kadka would get the implication—“found out about Odeth. They knew they were going to need a scapegoat after the first few murders, a way to lower defenses. So they blackmail the Uuthars into acting suspiciously in the Senate. They let us get a glimpse of someone too big to be anything but an ogren. They lead us to Odeth and plant evidence for us to find—we know the Mask can get through wards to do that. They give us a story, and it’s easy to believe, because the Uuthars already look guilty for keeping an ogre in secret to begin with. Then all the Mask has to do is lie low for a few days, let everyone think the threat is gone before going after another victim.”

  “We need to know who blackmails Uuthar, then,” said Kadka. “But letters all burned, she says. We have nothing.”

  “We’re more or less back where we started,” Tane agreed. “We have the list of people allowed through the wards on all three manors, which just gives us a dozen important families we don’t have easy access to, and no place to start. But there are still a few links we haven’t fully explored. The Knights of the Emperor, for one.” He sighed, swished the whiskey around in his cup, and took a sip. “I think I have to try to talk to Nieris. There’s a chance he knew something about this.”

  Kadka cocked her head. “Can he talk? Mind is burned out by wraith, I thought.”

  “The Astra-riven are still alive, just… empty. Sometimes they respond to certain triggers that meant something to them before. Like a reflex.”

  Kadka nodded. “He is at family estate in country. We have to take rail to get there. Is alright for you?”

  Tane touched the battered watch case in his pocket and took another swallow of his drink. He hated riding the ancryst rail. “I’ll manage. It’s a few hours by rail and a day or more by carriage. We can’t afford the time. But I’m going alone. There’s something else I need you to do.”

  Kadka didn’t say anything, just waited. There was a resignation to the way she looked at him—she knew what was coming. And he knew she wouldn’t like it. He gulped the rest of his whiskey to steel himself.

  “The Silver Dawn,” he said. “This Iskar. You said he gave you a way to contact him. You should arrange a meeting. Ideally somewhere safe with lots of witnesses.”

  “You still think they are part of this.” Kadka said flatly. She took her feet off his desk, leaned forward in her chair. “Told you, I trust him. Didn’t feel like liar.”

  “Kadka, he’s the one who sent us to the Deepweld manor. If we were meant to see the Mask, that means someone knew we’d be there. We need more than just a feeling.”

  “Do we?” Something flashed behind Kadka’s yellow eyes. Anger? He couldn’t remember ever seeing her truly angry. “Always you believe people or don’t on feelings. Like Uuthar today. Why does my feeling not matter?”

  Spellfire, I know Iskar made an impression on her, but where did the rest of this come from? “It matters, but right now we need to follow every possible lead. We don’t have anything else left. And you have to admit, it’s strange that this man keeps himself hidden underground when a kobold like you described could make a huge difference for his people. A sign of the dragon heritage they always claim. Why doesn’t he show himself? I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t understand, Carver,” said Kadka. “What is like, being goblin, or kobold here. Or orc. People Silver Dawn stands for.”

  “That’s not fair,” Tane protested. “People with no magic don’t exactly have it easy in Thaless. I’ve spent my whole life fighting that.”

  She shook her head. “Is different. No one sees you have no magic, not like they see fangs, scales, skin. Maybe Iskar hides because is dangerous to stand out. Makes people angry to see things outside what they know. Just want to see what they expect. Greedy kobolds, sneaky goblins, scary orcs. Like me. Just muscle. There to fight, not think.” She scowled, shook her head. “But every time since we start this case, I am not strong enough. I can’t fight Mask, can’t stop ogre. Can’t even get away when they take me in tunnels. If I am not more than muscle, I am nothing.”

  So that’s it. I should have seen it sooner. “Kadka, that’s not… I don’t see you that way. I couldn’t do this without you. We’re partners. Friends.”

  Kadka shoved her chair back as she stood. “Then why not trust me? I say Iskar is not part of this. You trust me, you trust him. Simple.”

  Tane spread his hands. “It’s not that easy. If we don’t do something, people are going to keep dying, and our name is going to be the excuse at every scene. We have to find the Mask, and I don’t know where else to look!” He took a deep breath, poured himself another finger of whiskey and tossed it back. Shouting isn’t going to help. She’ll see reason. She just needs a peace offering. “Look, I do trust you. If you say Iskar is clean, he probably is. Which means his people really did see the Mask that night, and they might see him again. That’s as good as anything else we have. It’s worth asking a few questions.”

  “Fine. I will ask, because maybe they see something useful. Is not just you who wants Mask found.” Kadka fixed him with a fierce
yellow-eyed glare. “But I am not stupid, Carver. You say that part to make me go, not because you believe. Every day I watch you trick people with words. You call me partner, but think I won’t see when you use same tricks on me? You are no partner.” She stalked to the door, threw it open. “And maybe not friend I think you are, either.”

  Before Tane could say anything more, the door swung closed behind her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  _____

  KADKA GAVE CARVER ample time to leave for the ancryst rail before returning to the office the next morning. She wasn’t in the mood to see him again.

  The door to 17 Tilford Street looked much like the others in the long joined brickfront that took up this section of road, all painted in flaking green with a pair of high-set square windows. The only thing that made this one stand out was the small plaque centered beneath the windows, stenciled with the words ‘Consulting and Investigation’. A space had been left above for a name that they hadn’t yet chosen—Carver refused to entertain the idea of running with ‘Magebreakers’.

  She tried the door; it was locked. Didn’t mean he was gone yet. Carver insisted on using traditional locks in addition to wards for security, a practice he often complained had been forgotten in Thaless. She couldn’t hear him moving around inside, though, and she had sharp ears. She fished her key from her pocket and let herself in.

  There was no sign of Carver. She crossed the room to peek behind the folding screen that hid his mattress. He wasn’t there. Good. She wasn’t done being angry with him, even if she only half understood why. Why she’d felt the need to defend a man she hardly knew, why it mattered so much to her that she be right. She’d been outmatched and outmuscled a few times these past days, and she didn’t like how useless it made her feel, but that wasn’t the whole of it.

  She’d spent so long ignoring the way people in Thaless looked at her, because that was just how things were. Because she was an outsider, and it wasn’t her fight. And then Iskar had told her that she could do something to change it. Not with fists or knives or bared teeth, but with her voice. She wasn’t sure if she was up to that, or what she’d say if she was, or if she even wanted to be. But the idea lingered. If she could do something about it, then maybe it was her fight, citizen or no.