Company of Strangers, #1

by Melissa McShane

  “That, and hum a note. At least that’s what I remember Neoma doing,” Alaric said.

  Padget eyed the box dubiously. “I thought Neoma was the only one who could open it.”

  “Just breathe on it, and let’s find out, all right?” Alaric said. “And if not, we’ll figure something else out.”

  Padget leaned over, drew in a deep breath, and let it out in a warm puff against the lock, humming a low tone. Nothing happened. He drew in a breath to try again, and with a click, the lock sprang open. “It worked!” Padget exclaimed, and opened the lid. Sienne found herself in the middle of a cluster of people, all peering into the box. The contents were exactly as she’d seen them last, bags of coins, loose gems, the beautiful necklace, and the bluestone pendant, shimmering like cloth of gold dyed to match the night sky.

  Alaric picked it up and held it up to the nearest lantern shedding a golden light over the kitchen. “A key,” he said. “Liurdi called it a key.”

  “That woman, Raene, was right. He gave away too much,” Dianthe said. “He clearly believed we knew what it was for.”

  “He said it would do us no good without the trunk,” Perrin said. “A trunk he no doubt possesses.”

  “Then we must find this trunk, and open it,” Kalanath said. He’d repossessed himself of his staff when they entered and looked more comfortable than he had in hours.

  “Should we?” Dianthe said. “If he’s the owner of the trunk, we’d be stealing from him if we used the key. If he hadn’t had Neoma killed, if he’d just bought the pendant like a sane person, we wouldn’t be involved at all.”

  “Somebody who’s willing to commit murder, even by proxy, is no one whose ultimate goals are noble,” Alaric said. “I have a feeling we’ve come in at the end of a long chain of crimes this man has committed in pursuit of this key.”

  “He killed Neoma?” Padget said.

  They all went silent. Sienne had forgotten there was someone in the room for whom Liurdi’s crimes were personal. “He hired the Giordas to get the pendant,” Alaric said in a kinder voice than Sienne had thought him capable of. “They murdered Neoma to do so.”

  Padget’s face was red and angry. A tear slid down his cheek. “I want them brought to justice. They should pay for what they did.”

  “The investigation will reveal the truth,” Perrin said. “The guards will have a priest divine their identities—”

  “I wish we’d known about it when we had the Giordas in our power,” Alaric growled. “We might have taken more direct action.”

  “There wasn’t time,” Dianthe pointed out. “Padget, the guards will figure it out.”

  “Will you tell them what you learned?”

  “It won’t matter. It’s just hearsay, if we tell them something Liurdi mentioned to us. But…” Dianthe’s voice trailed off in the face of Padget’s misery. She put an arm around his shoulder and hugged him.

  “I think we need more information,” Alaric said. “Perrin, could Averran tell us what’s important about this trunk? Or where it is?”

  “I know where it is,” Dianthe said. “It’s in the observatory. I saw it when I came through the window. Liurdi’s got it next to those armchairs, like a funny table.”

  Sienne remembered seeing the table when she entered the observatory. “How do you know it’s the trunk he was talking about?”

  “It’s an informed guess, really, but I feel confident about it. It’s old, maybe a couple of centuries old, for one. For another, when I captured their priest, she had her blessings out and was getting ready to invoke one of them, but she wasn’t looking at us, she was looking at the trunk. Then, when Liurdi mentioned the trunk, the other woman, that Raene, looked right at it.”

  “All right, so we know where it is,” Alaric said. “Going after it will be difficult. I’d rather not do it unless we know what it contains, or whether Liurdi’s plans are as sinister as I believe.”

  “I can ask,” Perrin said, “but I am not certain it is a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  Perrin pushed his bowl away and leaned his elbows on the table. “Averran has been unusually helpful on this…I suppose one must call it a quest. He has given me not only the blessings I have asked for, but others that have turned out to be remarkably and unexpectedly helpful. That blessing that allowed me to bind the door behind which we locked the Giordas, for example. It was not something I asked for, and from that I conclude Averran smiles upon our venture.”

  “That sounds as if you should ask for more of his help,” Dianthe said.

  “But then we must consider the nature of our opponents,” Perrin went on. “Specifically, that one of them is a priest who has received blessings from her avatar that will aid her and her fellows. In other words, God in Her guise as Delanie supports our enemy, while God in Her guise as Averran supports us.”

  “I do not understand how God can fight God,” Kalanath said.

  “It is a complexity I do not fully understand myself. I was taught that God in Her infinite wisdom and goodness may act at odds with Herself to teach humanity great truths, and that, when two avatars conflict, there is something else beneath the contention. In this case, Averran seems…perhaps ‘eager’ is not the correct word, but my instincts say his interest in our quest is beyond merely, mmm, interested. For whatever reason, Averran wishes Delanie’s followers not to possess this key. It is very likely he expects us to make of this fact what we will, and not trouble him for details.”

  “So…it’s up to our ingenuity and instincts,” Alaric said.

  “Even so.”

  Alaric set the pendant down on the table. They all stared at it, even Leofus, who’d let his spoon sink down into the pot. Sienne leaned over to get a closer look without touching the stone. “I could try…”

  “Try what?” Dianthe said.

  “Well, it doesn’t look like a key. Maybe if I tried opening it like I do my spellbook?”

  “Is that safe?”

  “It won’t destroy it.” Sienne glanced at Alaric. She’d developed that habit fast, hadn’t she? But he was looking at the pendant, too, so she picked it up and focused her will on it. For a moment, she felt it quiver, and its color deepened, the tiny sparkles dimming. Then the moment passed, and the pendant looked just as it always did. “No luck.”

  “That reminds me. I do have one more blessing like the one that revealed the ri—the location of the pendant,” Perrin said, glancing swiftly at Leofus and Padget. Talking about rituals in front of people not of their company was a bad idea, Sienne agreed. “I might see if Averran is willing to give a hint, since he granted me this blessing without my asking for it.”

  “Do it,” Alaric said.

  Perrin laid the blessing on the table and, after a moment’s thought, set the pendant on it. He stepped back, bowed his head, and whispered the invocation. Bright purple light traced along the lines of the sigil, sending up a whiff of jasmine and mint. The focused light drew the dark inverse of the scorched sigil on the ceiling, with the dark irregular shape of the pendant a shadow in the middle. The pendant itself sparkled more brightly, each of the tiny glittering specks shining enough to cast a second shadow on the table. Then the blessing went up in flame, causing Leofus to cry, “My table!”

  “It is not that kind of fire,” Perrin assured him. The fire went out, leaving no scorch marks on the table. For a moment, the pendant pulsed with purple fire. Then that, too, went out. Perrin picked up the pendant and turned it over in his fingers. “There are small marks here,” he said. “I believe they are letters, but the language is not Fellic.”

  “May I?” Sienne asked. Perrin handed her the pendant. She scrutinized it closely. “The alphabet is Fellic, but it’s not in any of the languages that use that script, and it’s not transcribed Ginatic or Meiric. I think it’s a code.”

  “Could you break it?” Alaric said.

  “Possibly. But it will take a while. I haven’t had much experience with codebreaking.”

  “And
even if you break it, we still don’t have the trunk,” Dianthe said.

  “So let’s consider the possibilities.” Alaric held up a finger. “One. We give the key to Liurdi on the condition we are present for opening the trunk, and deal with what’s inside then. Two. We sneak in and open the trunk ourselves. Three. We steal the trunk and open it at a place of our choosing. And four. We bury or destroy the key so Liurdi can’t ever have the use of it.”

  “I don’t like number one because I don’t trust Liurdi not to double-cross us,” Dianthe said promptly. “Though that’s really the easiest way to access the trunk. It did not look light, and it also had the same look the beams in the keep had. The ones that were indestructible.”

  “Do you think it came from the keep?” Kalanath said. “It would make sense.”

  “It might have, though that doesn’t help us now,” Alaric said. “If it’s indestructible like the box, it can’t be shrunk, right?”

  Sienne nodded. “The fit spell won’t affect invulnerable things.”

  “So we can’t have you sneak in and make it small enough to smuggle out easily.”

  Again Sienne marveled at Alaric’s sudden readiness to use wizardry. “I’m not good at sneaking, either.”

  “I find myself curious as to the contents of this trunk,” Perrin said, “so I am reluctant to pursue option four.”

  “Same here,” Alaric said, “but I think it may be more important to prevent the trunk being opened by the wrong person than to satisfy our curiosity.”

  “I don’t know,” Dianthe said. “It’s late, and it’s been a busy day. I say we sleep on it and make a decision in the morning.”

  “That is a good idea,” Kalanath said. “Maybe we see a path in the morning that we cannot see now.”

  “But what about Neoma?” Padget said. “You’re just going to let them get away with killing her?”

  “Padge, it’s not that simple,” Dianthe began.

  “It is that simple. You know who did it. Go and drag them to the guards, or…or kill them yourselves! You’re scrappers, isn’t that what you do?”

  “We don’t kill people,” Dianthe said, “and we’re not guards.”

  “It could have been accidental, if we’d known,” Alaric said darkly. Dianthe glared at him.

  “I can suggest to Denys that he look carefully at the Giordas,” she said, “but I really think the priest they bring in will figure it out. Padget, it will be…I mean, Neoma will have justice. But we aren’t it. I’m sorry.”

  “You were her friend, Dianthe,” Padget said. “She depended on you.” He turned and abruptly left the kitchen, and they heard the door open and slam shut. Leofus, looking uncomfortable, fished his spoon out of the pot, set it on the counter, and mumbled something about bedtime before slipping away.

  “Is there anything else we could do?” Sienne asked, her heart aching at the stricken look on Dianthe’s face.

  “No,” Alaric said with finality. “Dianthe’s right. We should go to bed and see if things look different in the morning.”

  “Good—no, wait,” Dianthe said. “Suppose that priest does another location blessing and sends that greasy man after us again? We need to protect ourselves.”

  “I have no protection blessings left,” Perrin said. “I could pray for assistance, but I truly feel Averran will be unlikely to answer, and if we are to have his help on the morrow, I would prefer not to anger him tonight.”

  “Then we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way,” Dianthe said. “I can rig something that will set off an alarm if anyone tries to get into the house.”

  “I think you should sleep here tonight,” Alaric said to Perrin. “If Liurdi and his fellows come after us, and you’re on your own, we wouldn’t know you were in danger until it was too late.”

  “I had been about to make that suggestion,” Perrin said. “If your Master Tersus does not mind.”

  “Not as long as you can pay.” Alaric turned to Dianthe. “Do you need any help?”

  “I just need to know that everyone’s in for the night. I’ll go explain to Master Tersus, if you want to come along, Perrin?”

  When she and Perrin were gone, Alaric said, “This is not at all the way I expected this job to go.”

  “Are you disappointed?” Sienne asked, feeling unexpectedly anxious for his answer.

  “Not yet. The idea of a treasure trove from before the wars is exciting. If we can figure out how to get at it.” Alaric smiled. “We’ve certainly met some interesting people.”

  “It is the most interesting job I have ever had,” Kalanath said with a smile.

  Sienne almost said So why don’t we do this again? But it seemed the wrong time to be talking about future jobs when the current one was unfinished. So instead she said, “Will Master Tersus mind that we’re turning his house into a fortress for the night?”

  Alaric shook his head. “One of the side benefits to hosting scrappers is you’re pretty much guaranteed protection from criminals. Master Tersus has some very expensive art collections, and more than once Dianthe and I have deterred thieves. If this were a serious danger, we’d leave rather than expose him and Leofus to it, but Liurdi has no reason to attack anyone but us. And I doubt he still has the Giordas on his payroll, given their colossal failure, so there’s little chance of collateral damage the way there was with Neoma.” His expression grew briefly bitter. “At any rate, Master Tersus will likely see this as an adventure.”

  Dianthe reappeared. “Perrin is getting settled upstairs, and I suggest you all do the same while I set my traps.”

  Sienne nodded and trudged up the stairs, remembering to skip the loose treads this time. Soon she probably wouldn’t even think about it. She returned to her room and changed into her nightdress, tucking her spellbook under her pillow. It made her feel silly and paranoid, since none of her companions were likely to steal it, but she wasn’t going to let that deter her from taking precautions.

  Someone knocked on the door. “Just checking in,” Alaric said, poking his head around the door frame. “I don’t like having this pendant where it isn’t protected. It makes me nervous.”

  “I don’t think anyone’s getting in here tonight.”

  “Even so, I’ve learned to trust my instincts. If anything happens…” He shook his head. “Sleep well.”

  “Good night.”

  She extinguished her magic light and settled in to sleep. Her spellbook was a hard, angular lump under her pillow, not very comfortable, but she shifted into the best position she could find and tried to sleep. After the day she’d had, relaxing seemed impossible. She rolled onto her back and started tensing and relaxing her muscles one set at a time, beginning with her toes and working her way up her legs. She closed her eyes and focused on her muscles, not letting herself think of anything else, and felt herself drift into a peaceful heaviness of body and mind that was next door to sleep.

  Something grabbed her and yanked, hard, pulling her sideways off the bed. She yelled, and tensed, but she never hit the floor. She opened her eyes to bright light from dozens of candles and hands grabbing her, rolling her on her side and jerking her hands behind her back. Sienne thrashed and bucked, trying to get free, but there were too many of them.

  She blinked away the too-bright spots until her vision was clear. The first thing she saw was Liurdi’s beautiful companion, Raene. She had Sienne’s shoulders in both hands and was pressing her cheek-first against something soft that might be a sofa. Sienne twisted to look behind her. Liurdi had her hands pinioned, and the priest held a length of rope ready to tie her. Sienne looked about wildly for something her invisible fingers might throw, but everything was either too heavy or fastened down. The rope went around her wrists tightly enough her real fingers began tingling immediately. Raene released her and stepped back. Liurdi came to stand beside her.

  “How did you—let me go!” Sienne exclaimed.

  Liurdi smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “Welcome back,” he said.

&nb
sp; 22

  The gaunt wizard appeared in the corner of her vision, just closing his spellbook. “You were lucky before,” he said. “But you’re too young to be very skilled, or to have many spells. Have you even heard of tragoven?”

  Sienne automatically translated the Ginatic in her head. “Trade? No.”

  “The plebeians call it castle, like the chess move. Switch the places of two people. Bypasses all those neat little protections you people put up.” His smile was as nasty as Liurdi’s. “Batagli’s getting the key as we speak.”

  “And then you’ll send me back?” Hope sprang up, hope that she wasn’t at their dubious mercy.

  Liurdi said, “I’m not one to pursue revenge. You fooled us, true, and stole our property, but we care more about the contents of that trunk than we do about you. Tragoven a second time, once Batagli contacts us, and we have the key and you have—nothing.” He squatted to put himself at eye level with her. “But tell your companions not to try attacking us again. You won’t catch us unprepared twice.”

  Sienne tried not to wince at the smell of onions coming off his breath. This was twice in four days she’d been captured. She was turning out to be more a fainting maiden in a melodrama than a scrapper. “Why me? Do you think I’m nothing without my spellbook?”

  “Tragoven requires something of the target’s, when you can’t see her,” the wizard said. He removed a handkerchief from his sleeve and displayed a brownish smear on one corner. “You spat blood after casting sepolisya. Very careless. Saliva and blood are more than enough to make a connection with you.”

  Sienne wished she could spit in his face, show him what she thought of his dismissive attitude, but he was too far away. She settled for glaring at him instead. His nasty smile widened.

  “Is Batagli done yet, Callia?” Liurdi asked.

  “Have patience,” the priest said. Her pale, undead face was very still, and her eyes were closed as if she were concentrating on something not in the room.

  “It’s been barely a minute,” Raene said. “Even Batagli needs time.”