Taellaneth Complete Series Box Set

by Vanessa Nelson

  “But your other grandfather?” Miach persisted. He seemed genuinely confused.

  “I have never met Serran vo Liathius,” she answered, skin itching under the intense scrutiny. The painted faces stared down at her, casting their judgement alongside the warrior’s disbelief, unease reflected in the faces of his third. She did not turn to look at Kester, glad for a moment that Orlis was not here with his incessant curiosity. She might now carry the order making her an Inquisitor Extraordinary, but among the Erith she had always been an outcast, even before her exile, her impure heritage setting her apart forever. The respite in the human world and among the ‘kin made the renewed scrutiny and reminder sting all the more.

  She discovered that the respite had also given her some confidence and assurance as to her ability to survive beyond Erith borders. Most importantly, she had had enough of being observed and found wanting by the Erith. She moved a step away, nodding towards the end of the corridor. “May we proceed, svegraen?”

  ~

  Still frowning, to Arrow’s relief the warrior did not say any more, his lips closed in a firm line which suggested many thoughts unspoken. They continued along the corridor to its end, a set of double doors which were simply burnished wood, the lack of any decoration making them stand out next to the fine paintings and ornately patterned floor. Two of Miach’s third moved forward and took a door each, opening them to release a blinding wave of sunlight into the corridor that had seemed bright enough a moment before.

  Arrow moved, not caring about the audience for a moment, drawn forward by the familiar scent of parchment and ink and the hum of magic which fizzed against her skin. Without warning she was faced with one of the wonders of the Erith, jaw slack as she stopped in the doorway, feet simply freezing of their own accord.

  There was only one place in the world that this could be, at the heart of the Erith Palace. The library. Tael ab Niasseren, or in the common tongue, Niasseren’s Folly.

  She tipped her head up to see the domed ceiling, impossibly high above, a vast array of stained glass painted with fantastical Erith creatures. The several stories’ height from the floor to the ceiling was full of a series of elaborate bookshelves floating in the air. For a moment she just stared, captivated by the sight. The large bookshelves, taller than an Erith lord and almost twice as wide as they were tall, travelled in slow, serene grace through the air. It might be fashionable among the Erith to disdain the room, calling it Niassaren’s Folly, but Erith travelled to the Palace just to see this one room, bypassing the many other wonders the Palace contained. To anyone magic-blind, it was a truly amazing sight. As it were, even through her awe, the complex web of spells holding the bookshelves in the air teased her second sight.

  “Hopelessly impractical, of course,” Miach said, the appreciation in his face belying his caustic words, “and it is nearly impossible to find anything for the courtiers move shelves at will to suit themselves and their various research projects. They rarely return things to the proper shelves.”

  Arrow suppressed a smile, reminded of the Archivists. She could all too easily imagine the Palace courtiers destroying any sense of order in the shelves.

  Despite its vast size, the library was almost empty. In the distance, Arrow could see what must be the main entrance, a far larger set of double doors with what looked like a third of White Guard on watch. Not far from them, a pair of sombrely clad Erith, who Arrow guessed to be librarians, were working at a set of shelves that they had temporarily called to the ground.

  “You, there.” A noble Erith, dressed in elaborate, embroidered robes and trailing scent in an almost visible wake behind him, strode up, angular face flushed with fury, ears twitching under his elaborate braids. There was a considerable amount of grey in his brown hair, Arrow saw, and his outrage and age placed him immediately in her mind, even before Miach spoke. One of the Queen’s relatives, his name was mentioned often in Taellan meetings, and rarely with any favour.

  “Lord vo Lianen.” The warrior made the most perfunctory bow Arrow had ever seen, so swift if she had blinked she would have missed it.

  “This is an outrage,” the elder lord hissed, glare darting momentarily to Arrow, then immediately away as though the mere glance had scorched his eyes.

  “The Lady Arrow’s assignment has been endorsed by Her Majesty herself,” Miach said, hands folded behind him, “who has been most troubled by recent events. Would you contradict our sovereign’s will?” The voice was mild, but the words were as sharp as steel.

  “It is an outrage.”

  “You are entitled to your views, my lord,” the warrior was still mild, “but I suggest you direct them to Her Majesty’s ears. I have my commands.”

  “Outrageous,” the lord spluttered and flounced away. Arrow watched with interest. She had never seen anyone, Erith, shifkin or human, truly flounce before, but it was the only word she could think of to adequately described Queris vo Lianen’s progress as he made his way across the room to the main entrance. The lord’s disgust settled her at last, something deeply familiar among all this strangeness, reminding her of who and what she was, and why she was here.

  “The scene of the incident, svegraen?” she prompted when they had both been staring at the lord’s retreating back for a long moment.

  “Over here. The scene was secured.”

  They rounded a pair of bookshelves hanging in mid-air and found two thirds of a cadre of White Guard, wearing elaborate Court uniforms, insignia on their sleeves showing them to be the Queen’s personal guard, holding a plain ward around them and whatever was behind them. The rest of Miach’s cadre, Arrow guessed, and wondered who was watching the Queen.

  “How long after the incident did you set up your wards, svegraen?” Arrow asked, peeking behind him. The wards they had established were strong enough to shimmer in the first world, impenetrable.

  “Too long,” Miach answered, clearly displeased, “for it was not immediately clear that this was anything other than a terrible mishap.” He glanced past Arrow’s shoulder. “We should have been more thorough.” He checked a moment, hesitation out of character and drawing Arrow’s attention before he spoke, eyes on Kester. “Had we known, we would not have moved the lady from here.”

  “Why would you suspect anything amiss in the library?” Kester asked, sounding quite sincere. The lady had been his relative, Arrow remembered, and wondered, far too late, whether she should have offered any words of condolence.

  She was distracted as Miach stepped to one side and waved a hand. The rest of his cadre stepped back as well, a co-ordinated, easy movement, and the wards moved with them, still containing the scene but moving back with the warriors so that the destruction was clear. As they moved back, the sweet, unmistakable scent of Erith death filled the air, constricting Arrow’s throat and drawing unwanted tears to her eyes. She would never get used to that scent.

  She took a long breath in, coating her lungs in the scent, and let the pain fade as she breathed out. A calming technique taught at the Academy.

  With the sorrow of Erith death set aside, she could focus on the scene.

  Three of the floating bookshelves had fallen, breaking against each other, spilling precious books and parchments across the polished, patterned floor. In the centre of the chaos was a hollowed-out spot which was spattered with blood. Old enough to have mostly dried. Fresh enough that the slightly bitter tang was still present in the air, even to Arrow’s dull senses. The hollow had been disturbed, parchments torn and books in pieces, but it was still very obviously the impression left by a body, initially defended by personal wards then crushed by the shelves.

  Arrow glanced up at the floating shelves high above and could all too easily imagine the terror of one of them falling.

  “We believe the lady felt no pain,” Miach said quietly, “which is the only blessing in all of this. What aid may we provide, mage?”

  “Has such a thing ever happened before?”

  “Never. The librarians and Pala
ce ward keepers renew the spells frequently.” The warrior glanced up, face tight. “All the other shelves have been checked. There is no other disturbance.”

  Arrow thought about that for a while, eyes following the gentle course of the bookshelves high above, each with its own unique rune pattern at either end, enabling them to be called down. The whole library had seemed like a fairy story when she had first heard of it, a conceit of Niasseren, long-dead Consort of another Queen, who had wanted something to occupy his time. Arrow had wondered how the thing had survived, for the power needed to maintain such elaborate spells would drain most mages. A very short time in the heartland and she knew there was power enough here to charge a dozen such libraries many times over, and for as long as there was a sun and moon, and never be a danger of draining the magic well under them.

  Added to which, the Palace ward keepers, who were responsible for maintaining all the wards and spells around the Palace, were among the most skilled of Erith mages, undertaking many years of training before they were entitled to call themselves a ward keeper.

  “Do you know what happened?” she asked and saw the faintest glimmer of something in his face. Approval. Speculation. Something she could not read.

  “Not yet.” He maintained his parade rest.

  “It may take a while,” she warned him, sliding her bag from her shoulder, moving to put it on the ground, then handing it to the junior cadre member who stepped forward.

  “We will wait,” Miach told her, with no hint of impatience.

  The whole cadre melted back further, maintaining their plain wards as a perimeter. Even if Lord vo Lianen had lingered in the room, he would not be able to see past those wards. She stepped forward, drawing a breath in. She truly hoped that the lady had not seen the bookshelves falling, had been unaware of anything untoward. The result was the same, but it seemed better to hope she had not suffered.

  The world in second sight was a mass of power and spells that caught her breath, the sheer strength of the heartland’s magic almost too much to bear, even indoors. It took a few moments of steady breathing until she found her balance again and managed to separate out the layers, disregarding the heartland to focus instead on the spellwork in the room. The level of skill demonstrated here, the Palace ward keepers’ work, was extraordinary, the protections around the library and the other bookshelves beautifully crafted.

  The spells around the fallen bookshelves which had kept them above the ground were torn into shreds, broken runes waving aimlessly in the air as she looked. Deliberately broken. There had been nothing subtle about this attack. But there had been a considerable amount of skill, she thought, seeing the many layers of protections and counter-spells woven into the levitation spells. Whoever had designed these impractical bookshelves had been well aware of the risk so much unwieldy weight posed and had provided protection against accidents. It was not simply a case of cutting one set of runes, or unleashing a snap of mage fire. To bring these shelves down had taken a focused, determined, and complex attack.

  Interested, despite the grim spattering of blood at her feet, Arrow bent to look more closely at the broken runes, calling a spark of power to enhance her sight. The runes had been cut through. Not cleanly enough for a blade, but perhaps a very slender thrust of mage fire. She cupped one of the trails in her palm, bringing it closer to her face to examine it further. She opened her second sight fully, murmuring a further spell to allow her to see in more detail, and turned the fragile thread between her fingers for long moments, seeing fragmented runes of spellwork, before she caught the tiniest trace of another signature. Mage fire had indeed been used, so finely crafted it was nearly invisible.

  “What do you see?” Miach asked, breaking her concentration. Whatever was on her face must had broken his discipline.

  “Magic,” she answered, picking up more of the broken runes. “Is there a reader in the Palace?” she asked, wondering if the magician’s trace might be familiar to someone else. Readers were as specialised as the ward keepers, capable of parsing a magician’s signature from traces too small for other magicians. They were also rare, but Arrow knew that there was at least one in the Palace.

  There was a short, odd silence, and a sharp intake of breath. Dimming her second sight she looked up to find Kester and Miach looking at her with grim expressions.

  “Have I said something amiss?”

  “The lady was a reader,” Miach confirmed. “One of the most accurate ever born.”

  “I did not know.” Arrow felt her ears heat. She probably should have known that. She ducked her head. “My apologies.”

  “You have found a trace?” Kester asked, checking himself before he could move.

  “I have,” she confirmed. “A moment, if you please.” She opened her second sight again and recorded the impressions of the spell runes. Despite the wards the cadre had placed, the trace was degrading quickly. Burrowing into the second world she found the unravel command buried within the mage fire. A clever, skilled magician had done this. She sighed, memories of her last encounter with a clever, skilled and ruthless magician all too clear.

  Dropping the fragmented threads, she knelt amid the chaos, careful to not cause further damage, and examined the broken spells, destroyed shelves and ruined books with her second sight engaged.

  “There is a book missing,” she noted absently, cataloguing the shelves’ contents.

  “Where?” Miach’s voice sounded close by her ear.

  She stiffened slightly, not having heard him move.

  “Here,” she pointed, “this is not a series, but there is a gap in the residue. Something was removed from under the lady’s body.” She blinked, dimming her second sight again, and looked up at him. “I would assume that that was before anyone raised the alarm.”

  “Indeed,” he was grim. “This place has been under constant watch since the lady was found. Partly to ensure that no one else suffered the same accident.”

  “This was no accident,” she told him, coming to her feet. He nodded, unsurprised. “The Palace has wards against battle magic, and alarms,” she noted. She had seen the whole building covered with beautifully crafted wards as they walked towards it. “Were any of them tripped?”

  “Not one.” There were lines about the warrior’s mouth now, weariness and sorrow. “Battle magic was used?”

  “A blade of mage fire cut through the spells supporting the shelves. It was fine work. Very fine work,” Arrow told him, conscious that the cadre were maintaining a ward preventing her words from carrying beyond the group. He drew a sharp, shocked breath.

  “That must have been thinner than a sword blade.” Kester was fascinated despite the circumstances.

  “About the width of a kri-syang,” Arrow confirmed. The silver blades used by mages in their spellwork, slender and short enough to wear along a mage’s forearm.

  “No war mage would achieve that precision,” Miach objected.

  “I did not say a war mage,” Arrow pointed out, “just that mage fire was used.”

  “Who else would use mage fire?” Kester asked, curious.

  “A better question,” Miach spoke before Arrow could answer, “is who could learn such a spell, and such skill with it?”

  “The teaching is widely available to senior students,” Arrow told him, casting her mind back to her Academy training. “So, that means anyone who has been a student at the Academy beyond the initial required learning. Or anyone who has had access to the Archives. The Archivists are careful, but books on mage fire are not in the restricted section.”

  “The skill?” Kester prompted.

  “A great deal of power to bend the spell to the caster’s will.” She stopped, lips closing for a moment, before going on. “Normally that would drain most mages. But the heartland is saturated with magic. The draw would be nothing. Unnoticed. And the mage has had hours and hours of practice.” She crouched in the chaos again, something catching her attention.

  “Could you do it?” Kester asked,
curious.

  She paused, tilting her head in thought, silver flaring in her eyes.

  “If there was need enough,” she answered at length, “but this was not done out of need, but out of clear intent to harm the lady.”

  “She was deliberately killed,” Miach stated the conclusion in a bald tone.

  “Without doubt.”

  “I had hoped that was not the case.” The warrior’s already grim face settled in stern lines. He beckoned to his second and issued a series of commands in a low voice. Unable to catch the orders with her inferior hearing, Arrow turned her attention back to the scene before her. There was something amiss, something out of place other than the missing book and the grim depression where the lady had fallen.

  It took her a long moment, overlaying her first and second sight, before she realised that the blood stain was the wrong shape.

  “Was the lady severely wounded, svegraen?”

  “She was dead, mage.”

  “Pardon. I meant, did her body bear many wounds?”

  “A head wound that the physician determined as the cause of her death. Other than that she had sustained many broken bones, but not other open wounds.”

  “There is too much blood for just one person,” Kester noted, kneeling beside Arrow with a fluid movement.

  “Can we separate the two?”

  “In time, yes,” Arrow confirmed, “but I will need to obtain the lady’s essence first to separate her blood. Is her body still preserved?”

  “Yes. Awaiting Kester’s arrival to conduct the rite.”

  With a start she remembered, again, that the warrior kneeling beside her was here for as grim a purpose as she was, to conduct the last rites for his relative.

  “My apologies, svegraen,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes, “may I examine the lady’s remains?”

  “If it helps to catch her killer, of course.” Kester rose, brief expression of something like revulsion crossing his face before it resumed its impassive expression. The brief glimpse of something else hurt more than it should. Far more than Lord vo Lianen’s earlier disgust.